Amadou & Mariam, Emmylou Harris, Allen Toussaint hit SF's Hardly Strictly Bluegrass ... Dan Auerbach, The Low Anthem, Sara Watkins are at Austin City Limits Fest ... Laurie Anderson, Bill Frisell join Gavin Friday and friends at Carnegie Hall for (red) ... David Byrne talks bikes in car-centric LA ... Carolina Chocolate Drops drop into Ann Arbor and Chicago ... Christina Courtin plays Boston and Brooklyn ... Kronos performs Crumb's Black Angels in Boulder ... Punch Brothers head South ... Wilco plays Prairie Home Companion and Farm Aid ... and more ...

Wilco kicked off its North American tour last night at the University of Iowa and is at Roy Wilkins Auditorium in St. Paul, Minnesota, tonight. The band stays on in St. Paul for a live broadcast performance of A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor on Saturday. Wilco plays the annual Farm Aid benefit concert, which will be broadcast live on DIRECTV and online on Sunday. Jeff Tweedy tells the Austin Chronicle about the joy of playing live, connecting with the audience: "I can't find anything better than that. You can feel it when a song means something to people."

Alarm Will Sound will celebrate its recent Nonesuch debut, a/rhythmia, with a free album release party and listening event at New York City's (Le) Poisson Rouge on October 18. "Within three or four measures, the riot is in full swing," San Francisco Classical Voice says of the album. "This is totally engaging stuff ... tons of fun."

Summer may be the season of festivals, but this fall weekend has two standouts: Austin City Limits and San Francisco's Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, a free outdoor event that has three Nonesuch artists—Emmylou Harris, Allen Toussaint, and Amadou & Mariam—set to perform in Golden Gate Park. Both Harris and Amadou & Mariam have concerts in LA earlier in the week; the latter plays live on KCRW this morning.

Thousands of music fans converge on Austin this weekend for the eighth Austin City Limits Music Festival. Three Nonesuch artists—The Low Anthem, Sara Watkins, and Dan Auerbach—will be among the more than 130 artists, spanning pop, country, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, indie rock, hip-hop, and gospel, to take the stage in Austin's Zilker Park over the coming three days.

Christina Courtin is set to hit the road again this weekend with shows in Boston and Brooklyn before heading off on a three-week tour with Elizabeth & the Catapult next week. Just in time comes a music video for "Bundah," a song the Knoxville News-Sentinel notes for "Courtin's dulcet voice" and the "florid acoustic guitar swaying through" the track.

Chris Thile brings his Mandolin Concerto to the third city in as many weeks in a performance with the Alabama Symphony Orchestra in Birmingham tonight. Thile joined the Oregon Symphony this past weekend for the West Coast premiere of the piece. The Oregonian called it "nothing less than a reinvention of the possibilities of his instrument" from the "mandolin wizard."

Wilco's 1995 debut, A.M., is now out again on vinyl. The band is set to begin a three-week tour this Thursday in the Main Lounge of the University of Iowa's Memorial Union. This afternoon at 3 PM CT, the band stops by the studios of radio station WXRT in their hometown of Chicago to talk about the tour and play guest DJ. The North American tour culminates with two shows in Chicago on October 18 and 19; Wilco heads to Europe in early November.

Shawn Colvin gave a trio of performances on the East Coast late last week, beginning with a set at Infinity Hall in Norfolk, Connecticut, that showed off her "quirky, thoughtful charm," says the Hartford Courant. Colvin "forged riveting moments" and "eased through a selection of tunes that brought out the luster in her singing."

Joshua Redman and his trio gave an Opening Night performance at the Indianapolis Jazz Festival earlier this month that All About Jazz calls "a brilliant start" to the festival, which ended yesterday. The set featured songs from Redman's latest Nonesuch release, Compass, review calls "another exquisite journey" from Redman.