Dr. John kicks off a month-long summer tour of Europe and the UK, starting at the Hop Farm Festival on Friday and making stops in cities like Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin, and London and festivals like Roskilde, Montreux, and Nice. Joining Dr. John for the tour is his band The Lower 911, featuring Jon Cleary; Trombone Shorty & New Orleans Avenue also join for a few shows. Dr. John returns to the US in August for the next leg of his North American tour, starting at the Newport Jazz Festival.

Shawn Colvin kicked off her US summer tour at the Somerville Theatre outside of Boston last week. The concert found Colvin in "sterling voice," reports the Boston Globe, with a strong connection between her and her fans on full display. The concert featured songs from Colvin's new album, All Fall Down, which the Globe calls "superb," all delivered "with perfect pitch and quiet charm." The tour continues along the East Coast this week.

Shawn Colvin and Mary Chapin Carpenter will embark on a series of tour dates in the UK and Ireland this October. These special shows will feature the acclaimed songwriters (and longtime friends) performing as an intimate duo and will include material spanning their vast catalogs as well as some of their favorite songs. Tickets go on sale this Thursday, June 28.

The Telluride Bluegrass Festival runs through the weekend with performances from k.d. lang and the Punch Brothers ... Björk brings Biophilia to Spain ... Billy Bragg brings Mermaid Avenue to the Midwest ... David Byrne's Here Lives Love plays at MASS MoCA ... Carolina Chocolate Drops and Shawn Colvin are in Connecticut ... Jeremy Denk plays Liszt with San Francisco Symphony ... Adam Guettel's Floyd Collins is in Chicago ... The Low Anthem and Pat Metheny are in Germany ... Natalie Merchant plays the Pacific Northwest ... Rokia Traoré concludes three-show series in London ... and more ...

Billy Bragg launches a North American tour this weekend 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 recent release of Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions, and features songs from that collection, in which Bragg and Wilco's Jeff Tweedy set Guthrie's words to music, as well as favorites from throughout Bragg's career. The tour begins with shows at Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music and The Ark in Ann Arbor this weekend.

The Pat Metheny Unity Band—featuring a new ensemble from the guitarist with Chris Potter on sax and bass clarinet, Antonio Sanchez on drums, and Ben Williams on bass—launches an extensive international tour in Europe, starting this weekend in Germany, followed by stops throughout the continent and in the UK. The band tours the US later this summer and into the fall. The tour includes songs from the band's new album, which earns four stars in the Guardian, Evening Standard, and the Financial Times.

Rokia Traoré is in London for the first of two major projects she will unveil there this summer. This week, she presents a series of three shows produced by the Barbican based on aspects integral to Malian music and its traditions: Donguili – Donke – Damou (Sing – Dance – Dream). The Guardian gives four stars to Monday's show, citing "Traoré's exquisite, cool, clear vocals," and says "she proved to be as compelling a storyteller as she is singer." In July, she returns to the Barbican for the UK premiere of Desdemona, a collaboration with Toni Morrison and Peter Sellars.

Here Lies Love, the new David Byrne and Fatboy Slim musical on the life of Imelda Marcos, begins a five-night, sold-out run at MASS MoCA tonight. The performances offer an early look at the musical, which will receive its official world premiere at NYC's Public Theater in April 2013. The Boston Globe calls the 2010 Nonesuch recording of the song cycle "superb" and "sumptuous." Director Alex Timbers, in an interview with the Globe, calls Byrne "one of the most important artists of the last several decades."

Punch Brothers have announced the first leg of their Who's Feeling Young Now? fall tour. The band has added a number of new East Coast dates in addition to the previously announced appearance at the Austin City Limits Music Festival on October 13. Punch Brothers kick things off north of the border with two Canadian dates—Montreal on September 27 and Toronto on September 28—followed by shows in New York, North Carolina, New Orleans, Georgia, and more. A limited pre-sale for most dates is underway.

Sara Watkins, who brought her spring tour to a close with three performances over the weekend, has now added a string of new fall dates as special guest of Jackson Browne on his US Acoustic Tour. The tour, which begins this summer on July 14 in Charlotte, North Carolina, runs through mid-August, before picking up again mid-October and ending on November 15 in Colorado Springs. Browne makes a special guest appearance on Watkins' new album, Sun Midnight Sun.

Punch Brothers, Sara Watkins perform at the Pete Seeger-inspired Clearwater Festival in upstate NY ... Björk brings Biophilia to Fes Festival ... Carolina Chocolate Drops play Colorado's Palisade Fest ... Dr. John takes Treme to Oakland ... Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson duet in Brooklyn ... The Low Anthem do Dublin ... Emmylou Harris and others celebrate Kate McGarrigle at Luminato ... Joshua Redman launches four-show Paris residency, including duo set with Brad Mehldau ... and more ...

The life and music of Kate McGarrigle will be celebrated in concert at Toronto's Luminato festival tonight featuring members of her family, including her sisters, Anna and Jane, and her children, Rufus and Martha Wainwright, and friends like Emmylou Harris. Luminato also screened a film of the 2011 NYC concert tribute to Kate, an excerpt of which you can watch here along with a CBC performance of Kate's song "(Talk to Me of) Mendocino" by Anna, Rufus, and Martha. The city of Montreal will rename a square in her honor next week.