Effective period / Period of releases: 2008

Little’s deep and soulful sound is the product of experience. She says she wasn’t exposed to much pop music growing up in a large blue-collar family: She seldom listened to the radio, and didn’t see a TV until she was 11. She received her first guitar at 16: When her closest childhood friend was killed in a tragic car accident, the girl’s mother gave Little the instrument as a gift. “I found myself channeling the pain and grief I was going through, with my voice and my guitar,” she says. “That’s where my soul was born.”