Billy Bragg will launch a tour of Europe and North America this spring and summer in celebration of the 100th anniversary of Woody Guthrie's birth. The tour, titled The Ain't Nobody That Can Sing Like Me Tour, follows the Nonesuch release of Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions, on April 21, and will feature songs from that collection, in which Bragg and Wilco's Jeff Tweedy set Guthrie's words to music. The tour will take Bragg to concert halls and summer festivals, including the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival in Okemah, Oklahoma. The North American leg of the tour begins at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago on June 22.

A new production of John Adams's groundbreaking first opera Nixon in China, led by director Chen Shi-Zheng, receives its premiere performance at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris tonight. Musical director Alexander Briger leads the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, the Châtelet choir, and a cast featuring baritone Franco Pompini as President Richard Nixon. Performances begin tonight and run through next Wednesday, April 18. Watch a preview of the new production here. Nonesuch Records reissued the Grammy-winning original cast recording of Nixon in China last year.

Dr. John was joined by Dan Auerbach and the band from his new album, Locked Down, for the live premiere of Locked Down at BAM last week. "Physical and spiritual, earthly and supernatural, a memento mori and a promise of transcendence—all were aspects of Dr. John’s music for the night," reports the New York Times. Rolling Stone says the "band's potent sound and focused energy pushed the New Orleans legend into new sonic territory." The Times-Picayune calls the new album "timeless." The Morton Report says: "This is prime time light-up-your-eyeballs sound, complete with twisting rhythms, curvalicious horn lines, croaky vocals, and irresistible freedom at the heart of what the players are putting down." The Star Telegram calls it "one of 2012's great albums thus far." The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel calls it "phenomenal."

The Public Theater in New York City has announced its 2012-2013 Season, which includes the world premiere of the David Byrne and Fatboy Slim musical Here Lies Love, directed by Alex Timbers. The musical explores the life of former Filipino First Lady Imelda Marcos. Performances begin April 2, 2013. Nonesuch released the song cycle recording of Here Lies Love in 2010, featuring Florence + the Machine, Natalie Merchant, Santigold, St. Vincent, and more.

Carolina Chocolate Drops brought their US tour to California over the weekend for three stops with special guest David Wax Museum: at UCLA's Royce Hall on Friday, Slim’s in San Francisco on Saturday, and the Mystic Theater in Petaluma on Sunday. "These are not only obsessive music-historians but also expert players whose fret-board fingers traveled miles over the course of the night," reports the Los Angeles Times. "The Carolina Chocolate Drops didn’t just manifest this music but proved how much energy remains within these songs." The band heads next to New Mexico and Arizona.

Punch Brothers were the musical guests on The Late Show with David Letterman last night. The band performed "This Girl," off their new album, Who's Feeling Young Now?. Watch the performance here. Punch Brothers launch the latest leg of their US tour a week from Saturday with a live broadcast performance of A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor. The tour includes a stop in Austin for a taping of Austin City Limits and a sold-out show at Antone's and wraps up with a sold-out LA Bluegrass Situation show at Largo. Several summer festival dates follow.

Joshua Redman and Brad Mehldau head out for a duo tour of North America, beginning with a concert at Orchestra Hall in Detroit tonight. From there, the two make stops in Georgia, Missouri, North Carolina, Indiana, Illinois, Ontario, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. Amidst the duo tour dates, Redman and his Trio have a week’s residency at NYC's Village Vanguard, April 17–22. The Brad Mehldau Trio tours the US starting next month with a Denver concert featuring Timothy Andres.

Senegalese singer-songwriter-activist Youssou N'Dour, who released five albums on Nonesuch Records over the span of a decade, has been named Senegal's Minister of Culture and Tourism in the new government formed by Prime Minister Abdul Mbaye. N'Dour is one of 25 ministers that make up the cabinet of the country's new President, Macky Sall. N'Dour helped to celebrate Sall's inauguration with a live performance in Dakar.

On June 5, Nonesuch Records will release the new Shawn Colvin album, All Fall Down. A collection of 11 songs—eight written or co-written by Colvin—All Fall Down is her eighth studio album and the first to be produced by her longtime friend and cohort Buddy Miller (Robert Plant, Solomon Burke). Recorded in Nashville, All Fall Down features performances by Alison Krauss, Emmylou Harris, Jakob Dylan, Bill Frisell, Viktor Krauss, Brian Blade, Stuart Duncan, and Julie Miller, among others. The release of All Fall Down comes on the same date as William Morrow/HarperCollins publishes her memoir, Diamond in the Rough.

Dr. John, whose new album, Locked Down, is out this week, performed the album track "Revolution" on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon last night. He was joined by The Black Keys' Dan Auerbach, who produced Locked Down, and the album's band. Watch it here. They premiere more live music from the album at BAM this week as part of Dr. John's residency there. In a feature on Locked Down on NPR's All Things Considered, Tom Moon says: "Incredibly, in the few weeks they spent creating this, Dan Auerbach and Dr. John roused some spirits not heard from since the late 1960s and got them to speak about what it means to be alive and kicking in 2012."

Punch Brothers will be the musical guests on The Late Show with David Letterman tonight, performing "This Girl," off their new album, Who's Feeling Young Now?. They will tape an episode of Austin City Limits on May 1 for future broadcast on the PBS performance show, marking their ACL TV debut. A new Daytrotter session from the band is now available, with three songs from Who's Feeling Young Now? plus a medley pairing songs by Beck and Hazel Dickens.

Nonesuch Records will release London–based singer, songwriter, and guitarist Lianne La Havas’s debut LP this summer, following its release by Warner Bros. in the UK (exact dates TBD). The album was recorded in Brooklyn and Los Angeles last summer and was produced by Matt Hales (Aqualung). La Havas, whose first US dates were opening for Bon Iver on the band’s late 2011 Midwestern tour, made her NY debut in March at a sold-out show at the Mercury Lounge. Her first Los Angeles show will be May 22 at Bootleg Bar (tickets go on sale Friday, April 6). Additional US dates will be announced soon.