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The arts will hold our hands through the darkness. These are the backstories of five artists who provided us with survival soundtracks for the year that never seemed to end.

It has been a traumatic 21 months for touring musicians across the world but that hasn’t stopped them from recording some stellar albums which I have chosen to share with you this Christmas.

“I feel if you don’t go out there, if you don’t mingle among the people, how are you going to know what they need to know, and hear what they need to hear? That’s the good part. That’s the best part. Just treat everyone right.”

“I had a pretty good memory of this material, but when I actually heard it again I was delighted that it really is great.  Sam was always strangely unconcerned about stardom, but he was a star anyway.  When you play the record, you’ll see what I mean.” – Mitch Easter

“The banjo has a plunky, non-sustaining tone. Still, I believe the banjo deserves to be an instrument of the blues. Even its history could be a blues song!” – Poet laureate Norbert Krapf

Chloe Kay was moved to write the track after Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble’s iconic drummer Chris ‘Whipper’ Layton recounted a story to her during an interview for ‘ABS’ about him and Stevie overcoming challenges together to make it in time to one of their concerts.

“An inviolate inspiration is one that comes to you completely pure. It appears almost in its completeness, and there’s a recognition of it as being right for you – perfectly right for you. There’s no excuses in it. There’s no fantasy in it. There’s just a recognition of ‘yes.’ And then you capture that in a way that’s authentic to your unique creativity. Hopefully, that’s what I’ve done with this record.” – Steve Vai

“It’s definitely an acoustic guitar record. But topically it is just individual songs.”

Keith Richards once told Bill Payne that Little Feat and The Stones were part of an exclusive club both bands belong to. “He pulls me in, and he says we’re all part of the same cloth.”

Premiering exclusively today is the band’s new single, which features vocals from award-winning Alita Moses!