Reflections on a Year of Music: A Holiday Thank You 2021

Dear friends,

It is with a full heart that I write this letter to you simply to say happy holidays, but also to say a little more. I've always appreciated moments like this to stop my life when I get the chance to directly communicate the gratitude in my heart. I do not take these moments lightly, so here goes:

Thank you. Seriously, thank you, for what you all helped bring into my life this year. This time last year, we didn't have even a glimmer of vaccinations, a structure of returning to live performing, and artists like me were doing anything and everything just to survive. Even as the fight continues, you all made it possible for someone like me to begin that process in a way that even before COVID I couldn't have envisioned. 

To me, making and performing music is a complicated relationship. For every moment of frustration and struggle is an equal or greater moment that moves me to my core or inspires me, and this year was full of more moments than I could ever have dreamt to count. What I want you to know is that these two years have, like I'm sure for many of you, changed me forever.

Every day, my vision and purpose as an artist comes more into focus, my mission and the type of art I want to bring into the world becomes more certain and refined, and my understanding of what one person can do for others feels less limited by the second. And where did all of these changes come from?

From you. You who stopped your life, whether to watch a video, engage with a post, come to a show, or those who took a moment to let me know what my art has meant to them. For all of this, I am forever indebted to you, and I promise I am working day and night to be worthy of that gift of time.

To you and yours on this (still complicated) holiday season, I wish you good times, good health, and good memories in this busy time of year. For the new year, I wish for you what I wish for all those I love: more moments that remind us how good life really is.

See you in the new year,

Charlie