Bonnie Raitt

This flame-haired Californian blues singer rose like a phoenix with 2012's 'Slipstream'. Her first album in seven years, it became the biggest selling blues record of 2012 and won the inimitable slide-guitarist and political activist her 10th Grammy with covers of Dylan, Gerry Rafferty and Loudon Wainwright III songs alongside a few of her own, delivered variously with saloon-bar swagger and an audibly aching soul. These days, apparently even Katy Perry is a fan.