Stay tuned for details on Record Store Day to come tomorrow ... Emmylou Harris performs on a live broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion from Nashville ... Laurie Anderson premieres new work at UK's Sensoria festival ... The Black Keys headline Coachella, round two ... Carolina Chocolate Drops celebrate Johnny Cash in Austin ... Jeremy Denk joins Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra ... Richard Goode plays Winston-Salem benefit ... Wanda Jackson plays the Pacific Northwest ... Kronos Quartet marks Earth Day ... Cheikh Lô plays Carnegie Hall ... Jessica Lea Mayfield kicks off tour in Knoxville ... Audra McDonald sings in Newark ... Punch Brothers tour the South ... Joshua Redman concludes Village Vanguard residency ... Stephen Sondheim talks in NYC ... Dawn Upshaw joins Australian Chamber Orchestra in Florida and Toronto ... Sara Watkins tours the Midwest ... and more ...

Jessica Lea Mayfield launches a spring tour of the United States with a performance at the Rhythm 'N' Blooms festival in Knoxville, Tennessee, this weekend. Mayfield's set will take place Saturday evening at the John Black Studio. From there, the tour heads throughout the South, making stops in Jackson, Shreveport, Dallas, Houston, Austin, Little Rock, Nashville, and Louisville, as well as two festivals in Mayfield's home state of Ohio: at the Nelsonville Music Festival and Appalachian Uprising.

Punch Brothers have launched the second leg of their North American tour. Having kicked things off with a live broadcast performance of A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor at New York’s Town Hall, the band recorded a show for NPR's Mountain Stage and set out from there for headlining shows in Pittsburgh and Lexington. The Lexington Herald Leader notes the band's "virtuosity and stylistic cunning" and finds them at their "most exciting and inventive" yet. Punch Brothers' upcoming performances include stops in Knoxville, Nashville, Atlanta, Chattanooga, Philadelphia, New York, and Washington, DC, and a set at MerleFest.

The Joshua Redman Trio, featuring bassist Matt Penman, a member with Redman of the band James Farm, and drummer Gregory Hutchinson, kick off a week’s residency at the Village Vanguard in New York City tonight. "Joshua Redman has lately put his tenor and soprano saxophone to work in the context of James Farm, a superarticulate postbop quartet, with strong direction from all four of its members," says the New York Times. "He returns to a more ostensibly hierarchical trio format here ... The results should be sleek and full of silvery digression." James Farm has a four-night run at the Blue Note in Tokyo next month. Redman and Brad Mehldau conclude their own duo tour next week.

The Black Keys, after selling out arenas all throughout the US, Canada, UK, and Europe, announce their long-awaited return to Australia this October. Their new album, El Camino, has already been certified Platinum there. The band made their headlining debut at an unseasonably chilly Coachella festival Friday, helping to "conquer the cold," Reuters reports. MTV says the weather "was no match for the heat of the Black Keys," and the OC Register says their set "was pure bliss." The band joins Anthony Bourdain for some Kansas City BBQ on No Reservations tonight on The Travel Channel.

The Black Keys headline Coachella tonight, with all the musical magic streaming live via Coachella's YouTube channel ... Punch Brothers are on A Prairie Home Companion live from NYC; How To Grow a Band, the documentary about the band, opens in NYC ... Billy Bragg joins Frank Turner at Wembley ...Carolina Chocolate Drops play Phoenix ... Shawn Colvin is in Maine ... Dr. John concludes three-week BAM residency with New Orleans showcase ... Cheikh Lô plays Ann Arbor and Chapel Hill ... Joshua Redman and Brad Mehldau take duo tour to Chicago and Toronto ... Dawn Upshaw joins Australian Chamber Orchestra tour ... Sara Watkins launches US tour in Texas ... and more ...

Sara Watkins launches a US tour this weekend with two sets at the Bluebonnets & Bluegrass festival in College Station, Texas. The tour celebrates the forthcoming release of Watkins' new album, Sun Midnight Sun, which is due out on May 8. The nationwide tour includes headlining shows, a series of special tour dates with Dawes, a number of summer festival sets, and a special acoustic set and signing celebrating the Record Store Day release of a limited-edition 7” of a rendition of The Everly Brothers classic “You’re the One I Love,” on which Fiona Apple duets with Watkins.

The Black Keys will be headlining the 2012 Lollapalooza festival, which runs from August 3 to 5 in Chicago's Grant Park. Their fellow headliners include the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Black Sabbath, and Jack White. Also performing are Amadou & Mariam, whose new album, Folila, is out in the US this week. The Black Keys headline Coachella this week and next then launch the next leg of their North American arena tour with special guests Arctic Monkeys.

Senegalese singer-songwriter Cheikh Lô has returned to North America to play a series of venues and festivals featuring music from his critically acclaimed fifth album, Jamm. This will be the first opportunity for North American audiences to hear Lô performing songs from the album since its release in July 2011. Its "easy rhythms underpin music of warmth and grace," says the Washington Post. The tour begins in Washington, DC, tonight and includes a performance at Carnegie Hall in New York, sets at the New Orleans Jazz Fest and Louisiana International Festival, and shows in St. Louis, Ann Arbor, Chapel Hill, Ithaca, Montreal, and Toronto.

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."