Definitely a major undertaking with some of those acts!

Could also have been tough to keep going if you'd maybe decided you didn't enjoy some of the material, perhaps if they'd had a patchy career. Some good broad choices.

My recommendations for 2023 would be Rolling Stones, Grateful Dead, Miles Davis and Jimi Hendrix.

For Hendrix I'd urge you to include listening to the posthumous release First Rays of the New Rising Sun. Although he died in 1970 and this wasn't released till 1997, it's basically a compilation of the material he'd been working on and had intended as his almost complete fourth studio album. The tracks are even presented in the sequence he'd been planning. The delay was mainly down to legal problems with who owned the intellectual property rights.

Back in the day I used to keep a folder with bits and pieces of incomplete ideas. Every couple of months I'd dig it out and just casually try adding to some of them. Unfortunately I lost it during a house move; then I lost more stuff later which I'd saved in emails that got deleted... Luckily I still have my recordings of all the finished work!

> Unfortunately talent and originality aren't necessarily required.

Spot on!

Some of the most technically able performers, with the most unconventional ideas, are also the dullest for audiences. But they keep plugging away in tiny venues, rather than "sell out" for commercial success. Personally, I'm trying to blend both approaches: college trained but with the spirit of punk and grunge.

Sometimes just leave it for a day or two, then take another look. Don't try to force it, but see it as part of the process where you're okay with not always completing stuff in one single go. Our minds can work a bit like an electric toaster - pop in the problem, and when the answer's ready it'll just pop back up. Oh, and keep writing regularly, coz greater experience will make it tons easier to find decent solutions.

I've not bought any this year, but that's mainly due to not keeping up with what's being released. I've got quite a few friends who play in bands, so I'm normally supportive whenever they release new material. Plus, when I do listen to anything on my hi-fi, through good speakers, it always sounds so much better than listening to the heavily compressed streaming versions.

Use that as motivation to carry on doing what you love. Some people just aren't clued up enough to give a meaningful reaction to stuff outside their wheelhouse. No response at all could actually be better sometimes than somebody trying to bluff their way along while giving hurtful comments, as if they were an expert you needed to respect.

I always enjoy narrative tales, like:

• Steeleye Span's version of Tam Lin

• Martin Carthy's Famous Flower of Serving Men

• Fotheringay's Banks of the Nile

• Richard Thompson's 1952 Vincent Black Lightning