Tune in to NPR's Fresh Air today to hear highlights from the Carolina Chocolate Drops appearance on the show from earlier this year, following the release of their album Genuine Negro Jig. It's Country Music Week at Fresh Air, with the show revisiting "interviews with country music's legendary songwriters and performers." The band performs a free outdoor concert in Chattanooga, Tennessee, tonight.

Tune in to The Late Late show with Craig Ferguson to see Sara Watkins perform "Where Will You Be," off her self-titled Nonesuch debut album tonight on CBS. She, Garrison Keillor, and the cast of A Prairie Home Companion bring their Summer Love Tour home to the Minnesota State Fair for a live radio broadcast of the show on Saturday. Watkins promises a song by Harry Nilsson and one by Randy Newman.

Natalie Merchant concludes her summer US tour, featuring music from her album Leave Your Sleep, at the Peace Center in Greenville, South Carolina, tonight. She hits the road again in October for a five-stop tour of the mid-Atlantic states backed by a full orchestra. Glide says the new album shows "once again that Natalie Merchant not only has the chops to be one of the best singer-songwriters of her generation, but rather she is one of the defining ones."

Punch Brothers return to the road Saturday for the first of several September performances, starting with a set at the moe.down festival in Mohawk, New York. The band's fall tour includes a stop at the Lied Center in Lawrence, Kansas. Punch Brothers guitarist Chris Eldridge spoke with the folks at the Lied Center about the band's unique sound, in a video interview now on YouTube. Watch it here.

Laurie Anderson and Brad Mehldau are featured on New York magazine's list of The 20 Most Anticipated Events of the Fall in classical music and dance. Anderson tops the list with the New York premiere of her piece Delusion, which opens BAM's Next Wave festival. Brad Mehldau comes to New York as holder of the Debs Composer's Chair at Carnegie Hall, for the New York premiere of Highway Rider.

Carolina Chocolate Drops tour Midwest ... Bill Frisell joins Paul Motian Trio at Village Vanguard ... Richard Goode plays Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw ... Natalie Merchant brings Leave Your Sleep to Atlanta and Nashville ... Philip Selway plays Osaka ... Chris Thile goes solo in NYC ... Allen Toussaint joins Cyndi Lauper in LA ... Sara Watkins, Garrison Keillor, and A Prairie Home Companion bring Summer Love to Oregon ... and more ...

Philip Selway kicked off his tour in Tokyo last night performing the "warm, tender acoustic nuggets" of Familial, reports SPIN, proving to be a "talented frontman." The Irish Independent hears "pleasurable echoes of the comforting delicate folk of Nick Drake" on the new album, The Independent (UK) "the quieter moments of Talk Talk and Radiohead." The Sun gives 4.5 stars to this "mighty fine" album, featuring "one of the most gorgeous songs you'll hear all year."

Emmylou Harris and The Low Anthem are coming together to tour the US East Coast this fall. Starting at the Byham Theater in Pittsburgh on November 9 and concluding at the Peace Center in Greenville, South Carolina, on November 21, The Low Anthem will open for Harris, with stops along the way in Buffalo and Albany, New York; Northampton, Massachusetts; Wilmington, Delaware; Roanoke and Charlottesville, Virginia; and Frederick, Maryland.

Natlie Merchant's Leave Your Sleep tour brought her to Florida this week. The Sun Sentinel witnessed "a new Natalie Merchant ... burnished with the amber glow of something special," the songs of the new album proved "magical." The Broward New Times calls them "delicate, dreamy songs with multigenerational appeal." Tampa's Creative Loafing says Merchant "made it seem as if the poems had been waiting for her music all along."

Ahead of next week's release of Familial, Philip Selway launches a month-long tour of Japan and Europe. Following performances in Tokyo and Osaka, he heads to Ireland and the UK for several shows, including three with Wilco. NME gives Familial an 8, saying "Selway has delivered an album so honest and thoughtful, you'll see not only drummers but yourself in a new light." MOJO concurs, saying it "shows a sensitivity seldom credited to stickmen."

The Black Keys are set to open for the Kings of Leon for three weeks in September. SPIN caught up with the band at an earlier gig with the Kings, in London's Hyde Park, for a feature profile examining the Keys' career, "as their music has expanded from raw-boned basement blues-rock into spookier, swampier, sexier territory." The Keys are also featured in Relix, which takes a look at the making of "the best record of their career, Brothers."

Chris Thile performs solo at Rockwood Music Hall in New York City on Saturday, not far from where Punch Brothers worked out the songs on their album Antifogmatic. Acoustic Guitar magazine calls the album "their Sgt. Pepper’s ... Draped in densely woven musical and thematic tapestries, this richly detailed album is filled with quirky, engaging, compelling, and dazzling music that will keep listeners coming back time after time to see what they hear next."