• With Aly Bain and Jerry Douglas once again at the helm and a fine gang of Scottish and Irish musicians, series 5 raises the bar by recruiting its first blues musician, Eric Bibb, and a superb cast from the bluegrass world – Sam Bush, Bela Fleck and Alison Krauss, who of course moved into different territory when collaborating with Robert Plant.

• Sessions director Mike Alexander keeps things simple, allowing no technical tricks nor fancy movements to come between the viewer/listener and the music. That way the richness of the music and the skills, fun and passions of the musicians and singers come direct, maybe as close as it’s possible to get to live music. Once again this unrivalled series presents six programmes of roots music as its very best