Shawn Colvin was the guest on the Tavis Smiley show last night on PBS. She talks with Smiley about her new album, All Fall Down, and her new memoir, Diamond in the Rough, both released last week. The in-depth conversation touches on the highs and lows of Colvin's life and covers a breadth of topics, not least her storied career in music. Watch the episode here.

Carolina Chocolate Drops recently stopped by USA Today's StudioA to perform a three-song set featuring music from their new album, Leaving Eden, and their Grammy-winning Nonesuch debut, Genuine Negro Jig. The set opens with "Your Baby Ain't Sweet Like Mine," off the earlier album, followed by "Country Girl" and "Riro's House," both from the new album. Watch the set and the follow-up interview with the band here.

Dr. John is the guest on NPR's World Cafe today, a fitting culminating episode of the program's week-long exploration of the music of his hometown, New Orleans. He gives host David Dye a tour of the Crescent City through a mystical lens, visiting a cemetery, a spiritual supply shop, and a voodoo temple. Dr. John celebrates the music of Treme at the Paramount Theatre in Oakland tonight as part of the SFJAZZ Spring Season. NPR Music and the Guardian both include his new album, Locked Down, among the year's best (so far).

The life and music of Kate McGarrigle will be celebrated in concert at Toronto's Luminato festival tonight featuring members of her family, including her sisters, Anna and Jane, and her children, Rufus and Martha Wainwright, and friends like Emmylou Harris. Luminato also screened a film of the 2011 NYC concert tribute to Kate, an excerpt of which you can watch here along with a CBC performance of Kate's song "(Talk to Me of) Mendocino" by Anna, Rufus, and Martha. The city of Montreal will rename a square in her honor next week.

The Black Keys are featured on this week's episode of American Routes public radio show out of New Orleans. Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney spoke with host Nick Spitzer backstage at a performance in the Crescent City about life in their hometown, their musical influences, and more. The band is set to make a special guest appearance on Comedy Central's Workaholics this Tuesday. Entertainment Weekly has a First Look, with photos from the set, plot details (they're "playing dirtbags"), and an interview with Workaholic's Adam DeVine about how the cameo came about.

Joshua Redman is the focus of a four-night, multi-concert Domaine Privé at the venues of Cité de la Musique in Paris starting Friday that will showcase some of the different combinations of musicians the saxophone player has explored: Axis Saxophone Quartet on Friday, a duo set with Brad Mehldau on Saturday, a double trio as heard on Redman's album Compass on Sunday, and the trio of Elastic Band Revisited, featuring Sam Yahel and Brian Blade, on Monday.

Shawn Colvin is featured on the latest episode of eTown, her seventh time on the radio show. She performs "Change Is on the Way," from her new album, All Fall Down, and favorites "Polaroids" and "Diamond in the Rough." Watch those three performances here. She and fellow guest Mary Chapin Carpenter also perform the classic tune "That's the Way Love Goes" and close the show with a special take on The Band's "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" in tribute to the late Levon Helm.

NPR Music has named its 25 Favorite Albums of 2012 (So Far); among them are Dr. John's Locked Down and Jeremy Denk's Ligeti/Beethoven. "Locked Down is one of the best albums of his lengthy career," says NPR of Dr. John. "This isn't Disneyland-style New Orleans; this is the city filtered through vintage R&B and gritty funk, that spooky, swampy side of New Orleans music that drew so many to Dr. John early on." NPR says of Denk's pairing of Ligeti and Beethoven: "What makes the seemingly impossible a reality is Jeremy Denk's genius—his technical prowess, insight, wit and ardor have resulted in an album that people are going to be talking about for years to come." Amadou & Mariam's song "Dougou Badia" is among NPR's 50 Favorite Songs of 2012 (So Far).

Pat Metheny's new album, Unity Band, featuring Chris Potter on sax and bass clarinet, Antonio Sanchez on drums, and Ben Williams on bass, is out now. The Evening Standard and the Guardian give the album four stars. BBC Music calls it "arguably one of Metheny’s best releases in recent times." Guitarist gives it five stars, calling it "a sterling example of why Metheny is so relevant and respected today ... Most impressive." All About Jazz says the new album is "unequivocally one of Metheny's finest—an album that's sure to find its way to 'best of' lists for 2012." Watch the new Pat Metheny podcast, featuring music from the album and commentary from Metheny, here.

Punch Brothers make their third appearance on NPR's Mountain Stage with a set recorded on the campus of West Virginia University and airing on NPR stations across the US this week. The band performs five songs off their new album, Who's Feeling Young Now?. Also on NPR, the band can be heard on John Wesley Harding's Cabinet of Wonders. Watch Punch Brothers' performance of "Movement and Location" from last weekend's Bonnaroo and a "Backstage at Mountain Stage" interview with Chris Thile here.

John Adams's music has featured prominently in California concert calendars of late, with the recent world premiere of his new oratorio, The Gospel According to the Other Mary, by the LA Philharmonic, and last weekend's Bay Area premiere of his first opera, Nixon in China, by the San Francisco Opera. The Gospel "contains some of the strongest, most impassioned music of Adams’s career," raves The New Yorker. It is "an immensely potent work, one that may prove pivotal in the composer's output." The San Francisco Chronicle says the piece "finds Adams at his most evocative and inventive." Of Nixon in China, the Chronicle says it "has taken its rightful place as one of the great operas of the latter part of the 20th century. And Friday's performance came as a welcome reminder of how audacious and yet assured this work is."

Shawn Colvin's video for the title track to her new album, All Fall Down, has premiered on YouTube; watch it here. Colvin performs from the album and reads from her new memoir, Diamond in the Rough, at Barnes & Noble at The Grove in LA tonight and performs at the El Rey with Buddy Miller and Viktor Krauss on Tuesday. They performed on CBS This Morning on Saturday. Colvin is featured in the New York Times' Texas Report and in the Austin American-Statesman, which calls All Fall Down "superb."