Sara Watkins kicked off a months-long tour as special guest of Jackson Browne over the weekend. "Cheerful and charming, Watkins was totally at ease," says the Charleston City Paper of Sunday's show. "Watkins also handled the melodies and harmonies with cool authority, and she dazzled with several fiddle solos that demonstrated her virtuosity." Her new album, Sun Midnight Sun, on which Browne makes a guest appearance, is due out on vinyl next Tuesday, July 24, and is available to pre-order in the Nonesuch Store.

Singer/songwriter Fatoumata Diawara’s debut album, Fatou, will be released in North America on August 28, 2012, and is now available to pre-order in the Nonesuch Store. Diawara will tour the US this fall. She has been receiving rave reviews since the album’s release in the UK and Europe last year. The Telegraph says “this stylish debut doesn’t put a foot wrong"; Pitchfork calls it "beguiling." Diawara uses elements of jazz, pop, and funk along with her ancestral Wassoulou tradition in her songwriting. John Paul Jones, Toumani Diabate, and Tony Allen all make guest appearances on Fatou.

With the Olympic Games set to begin in two weeks, Kronos Quartet joins in the Cultural Olympiad's London 2012 Festival with a Glasgow performance of Terry Riley's Sun Rings ... Punch Brothers perform at three UK festivals ... Billy Bragg celebrates Woody Guthrie's centennial in NYC ... Carolina Chocolate Drops tour the South ... Shawn Colvin is on NPR's World Cafe ... Dr. John tours Europe ... k.d. lang plays Vegas ... Brad Mehldau Trio, Pat Metheny Unity Band, Joshua Redman all tour Italy ... Sara Watkins plays Praire Home Companion, kicks off tour with Jackson Browne ... and more ...

Sara Watkins begins a months-long tour as special guest of Jackson Browne this weekend; she also joins A Prairie Home Companion at LA's Hollywood Bowl for its final show of the season. The LA Times, reviewing a recent Watkins set, says: "Touring in support of her excellent new album," she performed "well-crafted, honest fiddle, guitar and drum music that drew not only on the bluegrass tradition but also hinted at old-time string band tunes, tossed in a touch of Texas swing, a little dose of rock and a certain Watkins family confidence that finds sustenance in adventure."

Saturday, July 14, 2012, marks what would have been folk legend Woody Guthrie's 100th birthday. Billy Bragg, who, with Wilco, put music to Guthrie's words on the acclaimed Mermaid Avenue albums, has been touring North America with those songs, culminating this weekend with a set at the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival in Guthrie's Oklahoma hometown, multiple events in his adopted hometown of New York City, and a final show in Maryland. Bragg begins his European summer tour later this month.

The Pat Metheny Unity Band—Chris Potter on sax and bass clarinet, Antonio Sanchez on drums, and Ben Williams on bass—takes its month-long European tour to Italy this week. That follows Sunday's show at London's Barbican Hall, to which the Guardian gives four stars, calling the Unity Band "a group of blazing virtuosi with musical intelligence to match." Jazzwise says: "Metheny’s solos remain a thing of wonder: melodic at any tempo and packed with fresh ideas." The European tour continues through July 22; the US tour begins at the Caramoor Festival on July 29.

Punch Brothers launched the European leg of their summer tour at Denmark's Roskilde Festival on Friday. Their entire set was captured on video; watch it in full here. The band's European tour continues into next week and includes three more festival dates in the UK and headline shows in Paris and Dublin. And check out a photo gallery from Punch Brothers' recent show as Wilco's special guest at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre.

It's the summer festival season across the Northern Hemisphere, with a whole host of Nonesuch artists—Björk, Dr. John, Punch Brothers, The Low Anthem, Joshua Redman, James Farm, Pat Metheny Unity Band, Brad Mehldau Trio, Lianne La Havas, Steve Reich, k.d. lang, Emmylou Harris, Laurie Anderson, Carolina Chocolate Drops, Jeremy Denk—performing at festivals like Roskilde, North Sea Jazz, Copenhagen Jazz, Lugano, Bloc Weekend, Vancouver Island, Winnipeg Folk, Bellingham, Pasadena's Summer Music Festival, and more!

The North Sea Jazz Festival takes place this weekend in Rotterdam, Netherlands, featuring a diverse array of artists, including several familiar to readers of the Nonesuch Journal: Joshua Redman, James Farm, Pat Metheny, Brad Mehldau Trio, Punch Brothers, Lianne La Havas, Fatoumata Diawara, and Oumou Sangare. Redman, in fact, is this year's North Sea Jazz Artist in Residence and as such performs on each festival day with varied musical projects.

Steve Reich joins the Bang on a Can All-Stars on their three-city tour of France and the UK this week: at the Cité des congress in Nantes tonight, Cité de la musique in Paris tomorrow, and the London Pleasure Gardens on Friday for the 2012 Bloc Weekend festival. As part of the all-Reich programs, the composer joins in performing Clapping Music. Later this month, he joins the ensemble for its six-hour music marathon at MASS MoCA.

Emmylou Harris, who is spending the North American summer and fall on tour across Canada and the United States, will celebrate the Southern Hemispheric spring touring Australia with her band the Red Dirt Boys this November. The tour begins at the Perth Concert Hall on Tuesday, November 6, and include stops in Adelaide, Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney, and the Gold Coast. Tickets go on sale this week.

ROMP: Bluegrass Roots & Branches festival in Owensboro, Kentucky, features return performances from Carolina Chocolate Drops, Punch Brothers ... Laurie Anderson joins Angélique Kidjo for Celebrate Brooklyn! ... Billy Bragg, Shawn Colvin each tour the US Northeast ... Dr. John, Lianne La Havas play Hop Farm fest ... Emmylou Harris is in Michigan and on Animal Radio ... k.d. lang plays in her new hometown of Portland ... Pat Metheny Unity Band tours Europe ... Joshua Redman joins The Bad Plus in Minnesota ... Sara Watkins joins her brother Sean for the Watkins Family Hour in LA ... and more ...