Can the Rolling Stones’ new album lift your Christmas blues?

Yet, the deluge of live releases – they’ve released twice as many live albums as studio records since 1989, and that’s excluding historical throwbacks like 2011’s Some Girls: Live in Texas “78 – suggests that the iconic septuagenarians have more or less run out of things to say”.

“This album is a homage to our favorites, people that kicked us off in playing music, that was the reason we started a band”, charismatic frontman Mick Jagger recently told The New York Times newspaper.

“Ride “Em On Down” is a cover of a 1955 Eddie Taylor recording and features on the Stones” new album of blues standards, Blue & Lonesome.

Meanwhile, frontman Sir Mick Jagger, 73, says he’s had enough of blues and wants to get down to working on their next album of original tracks, and admits they never meant to put out a whole record of covers in the first place.

As for Richards, he pointed out, “The thing about [Blue & Lonesome] is that we didn’t intend to make a blues album”. So we said, ‘Let’s do another one. Blue & Lonesome features a dozen songs, including tracks made famous by Willie Dixon, Howlin’ Wolf, Memphis Slim, Buddy Johnson and more. The great Nicky Hopkins, who I did get to know and who was a lovely, lovely guy, one of the best piano players.

“Blue & Lonesome” was released today (December 2nd 2016) through Interscope Records.

“We cut that, we listened to it back and suddenly the sound is there”.

We had to wait an entire year for this highly anticipated album, and we’re so excited to finally discover these incredible covers of songs by Blues greats like Little Walter, Magic Sam, Willie Dixon and Jimmy Reed. He wails with aching, nearly unhinged gusto on Magic Sam’s “All of Your Love”, and following a glistening harmonica intro on Ewart Abner Jr. and Jimmy Reed’s “Little Rain”, heightens the suspense while bringing his harp bellowing down to a whisper.

“And it surprised me when we got to Jimmy Reed because “Little Rain” would have been the last song I would have that we would have done, and I’m really pleased – it’s like a lullaby to my little twin babies”.

If this is just one of their videos from this new album and I love it this much already, I can only imagine what else they have in store.