The Carolina Chocolate Drops were on NPR's Fresh Air earlier this week, talking with Terry Gross and performing songs off Genuine Negro Jig. WNYC's Soundcheck names the album among its CD Picks of the Week. The Winnipeg Free Press gives it four stars, citing the "definite feel-good vibe." The Huffington Post reports from the Chicago show that the band "wrapped you in the sheer joy of this music played out loud."

Tune in to Jimmy Kimmel Live tonight to catch Allen Toussaint's performance with the New Orleans band Galactic. Toussaint's current US tour concludes in a special double bill with The Blind Boys of Alabama at Royce Hall in Los Angeles Saturday. He heads next to Europe for a number of shows, including the Allen Toussaint Festival with Don Byron in Bologna and a week's residency at the 35th anniversary International Jazz Festival Bern.

Emmylou Harris will join Dave Matthews and a host of guest performers at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium on May 19 for the Music Saves Mountains  concert, presented by the Natural Resources Defense Council. The concert aims to raise awareness about mountaintop removal coal mining and its consequences for Appalachia. Also performing will be two of Harris's frequent touring partners, Patty Griffin and Buddy Miller.

To coincide with the Nonesuch release of Natalie Merchant’s new album, Leave Your Sleep, on April 13, Merchant has announced a European tour in May—her first in eight years—including seven previously announced dates in the UK and now an additional seven dates in Brussels, Amsterdam, Cologne, Hamburg, Berlin, Munich, and Paris. The limited-edition, signed print of Merchant available exclusively with Nonesuch Store orders has now been extended to an additional 500 prints. [Update: These, too, are now sold out.]

The San Francisco Symphony has announced its 2010-11 season, which will feature the return of composer John Adams as a featured composer. Adams will conduct the SFS in multiple performances of El Niño starring Dawn Upshaw this December. Also part of the focus on Adams: an SFS performance of Harmonielehre, led by Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas, and an all-Adams chamber music concert featuring members of the orchestra.

The Carolina Chocolate Drops will appear on NPR's Fresh Air today to talk about their recent Nonesuch debut, Genuine Negro Jig. The trio is currently on a US tour, which stopped at Schubas in Chicago last night. "It’s easy to enthusiastically recommend Carolina Chocolate Drops," said Time Out Chicago. "They’re extremely talented and original musicians, proving that youthful old-time music is not an oxymoron."

As the world's Olympic athletes bid farewell to Canada, Wilco too will soon say adieu as the band's TransCanada Tour concludes this week. The next leg of the tour begins soon, and new dates have just been added to the European tour in September. Before then, Glenn Kotche will join Mario Batali for an event to benefit eighth blackbird. And a song from Wilco's 2009 tour stop at Bonnaroo is available for free with your support of the current climate change bill.

Punch Brothers play Paducah ... Alarm Will Sound joins Dirty Projectors in LA ... Laurie Anderson does Delusion at Williams College ... Carolina Chocolate Drops tour the Midwest ... Christina Courtin opens in Arizona ... Bill Frisell's at Blue Note ... Richard Goode is in Italy ... Kronos completes four nights in SF ... Low Anthem opens for Avett Brothers ... Magnetic Fields do Noise Pop ... Pat Metheny plays Poland, where Orchestrion is gold ... Joshua Redman opens SFJazz spring season ... Wilco conquers Quebec ... and more ...

The Magnetic Fields have been in the Pacific Northwest all week performing for sold-out crowds in Portland and Seattle. Seattle Weekly called the first Seattle show "a night filled with uncommonly brilliant artistry." The band heads next to the Bay Area for two Noise Pop festival shows in Oakland and San Francisco, a DJ set from Stephin Merritt at Amoeba, and a sneak preview of the documentary on the band, Strange Powers.

The Low Anthem began its ten-city tour with The Avett Brothers last night at Ohio University. The band is the subject of a feature article in the Boston Phoenix, on the front cover of the Providence Phoenix, giving a tour of the pasta sauce factory where they're recording their new album and a taste of what's to come, with a song the paper calls "a jaw-dropper ... complete with a rumbling finale unlike anything in the TLA catalog."

Today marks the start of the Carolina Chocolate Drops' US tour, featuring music from the band's Nonesuch debut, Genuine Negro Jig, which landed at No. 1 on Billboard's Bluegrass chart. "To paraphrase Rakim’s immortal words," says Paste, "these Drops ain’t no joke." They are, in a phrase, "the genuine article." There's also a Q&A with band members in North Carolina's Yes! Weekly and a recent appearance on BBC Radio 3's World on 3.

The 2010 South by Southwest festival is set to get under way March 12 through 21 in Austin, Texas, with a number of Nonesuch artists—The Low Anthem, Christina Courtin, and the Carolina Chocolate Drops—have already been tapped to perform. Also, SXSW will screen Ride, Rise, Roar, a new concert film following David Byrne on his 2008-09 tour The Songs of David Byrne & Brian Eno.