Audra McDonald, whose new album, Go Back Home, is out tomorrow, was featured on NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday. She spoke with NPR's Jeff Lunden about her personal connection to the songs on the album, which is noted as well in an Associated Press feature. Both the new album and this Friday's broadcast of her concert on PBS's Live From Lincoln Center "pull back the curtain on one of the most decorated women on Broadway," says the AP. "The CD's title taken from the stunning Kander and Ebb song from The Scottsboro Boys musical is a hint that this is McDonald's most personal album to date." New York recommends both, exclaiming: "It's entirely possible that Audra McDonald is the greatest singer alive."

Sam Amidon celebrated the release of his new album, Bright Sunny South, with a performance at (Le) Poisson Rouge in New York City last night. This morning, he was featured on NPR's Morning Edition, discussing what host Steve Inskeep calls "a new spin on very traditional American folk music," including the album track "Weeping Mary," which his parents had recorded with the Word of Mouth Chorus for Nonesuch in 1977. Amidon also spoke with NBC 4 New York about two sides of folk music that can be heard in his music. Listen to the Morning Edition segment and watch the NBC piece here.

Bombino, who closes out the current leg of his European tour in Portugal this weekend before heading to the States on tour, is the subject of a piece on BBC Africa. "What I like about rock and blues music is that I can transmit emotions through this type of music to my fans, and that's really important to me," he tells the BBC. "Rock music is similar to the traditional Tende music; it is very popular in Niger. Nomads enjoy rock because they love dancing like crazy to it." 

Randy Newman, who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last month, was a guest on NPR's Talk of the Nation yesterday. He spoke with host Neal Conan about his career in music, his songwriting process, writing for film scores, and more. Listeners of the show wrote in to pick their favorite Randy Newman tune. Their choice: "Political Science." The 28th Annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony will be presented on HBO on Saturday, May 18, at 9 PM ET/PT. Newman has a number of live shows scheduled later this spring and summer.

Iron and Wine was featured on the latest episode of NPR's All Things Considered. Singer-songwriter Sam Beam, whose fifth album under that pen name, Ghost on Ghost, was released on Nonesuch Records / 4AD earlier this month, spoke with host Melissa Block about the new album, his songwriting process, and the cohesive feel that ties the songs together. 

Bombino is featured on the latest episode of the BBC World Service program Outlook, which explores "extraordinary personal stories from around the world." "Traditional music is one of the forces which has united the Tuareg people who are now scattered across many African countries," says host Matthew Bannister, "and that music has been updated for a new generation by the guitarist Omara 'Bombino' Moctar." On the show, Bombino discusses the power of music to affect change. "I hope my songs can present part of a solution," he says. "The guitar can pass on the news."

Iron and Wine is the musical guest on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on NBC tonight at 12:35 AM. Sam Beam and his band perform “Grace for Saints and Ramblers,” off the just-released album Ghost on Ghost. Beam stopped by New York public radio station WNYC yesterday to perform a few songs from Ghost on Ghost on Soundcheck and talk with host John Schaefer about the new album, which was recorded over two weeks in Brooklyn. You can listen to the complete episode, including solo acoustic performances of three album tunes, here.

Joshua Redman’s new album, Walking Shadows, due out May 7, is featured on the latest episode of BBC Radio 2's Jamie Cullum. Cullum plays the album track "Stop This Train," written by John Mayer and Pino Palladino, and noting the album's core ensemble of Brad Mehldau, Larry Grenadier, and Brian Blade, says: "It’s fascinating here how this band get into this very sweet melody and state it in a very simple, beautiful way, and then start improvising on the melody and go more and more inside and outside the song in the soloing. A brilliant bit of improvisation from Joshua Redman.”

Rokia Traoré will be a guest on BBC Two's Later ... with Jools Holland this week, performing songs from her new album, Beautiful Africa. She and her band play "Kouma" on Tuesday's live show and "Mélancolie" and "Tuit Tuit" on Friday's show. This week's programs also include performances from Phoenix, Eric Church, Laura Marling, Petula Clark, and more. Tuesday morning, Traoré will discuss the album and perform "Ka Moun Kè" on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour.

Iron and Wine makes its Nonesuch Records debut with the release of Ghost on Ghost next week. But you don't need to wait till then to hear it. The album is streaming in full all this week as an NPR First Listen. "Beam now presides over arrangements springy and three-dimensional enough to accommodate a horn section—and yet he still finds a way to wrap his agreeably soft voice around thematically weighty material," writes NPR's Stephen Thompson. "Beam still lets his songs and sound morph and evolve; more than ever, he's a songwriter versatile enough to pack huge ideas into simple arrangements and vice versa."

Bombino's new album, Nomad, was featured on NPR's All Things Considered, which calls it "a landmark in African rock music." Reviewer Banning Eyre says producer Dan Auerbach "has done nothing to dilute Bombino's folksy, organic songs. Instead, he's given them sonic heft rarely heard on African guitar recordings and added a few tasteful Nashville touches, like lap steel guitar." Eyre concludes: "This is a seductive, friendly album. It doesn't pander with gimmicks or English lyrics, but it manages to bring a distant, Islamic culture unexpectedly close through the universal language of rock and roll."

Nataly Dawn, who is currently touring the US, recently appeared on WNYC's Soundcheck to perform a few songs from her new album, How I Knew Her, and talk with host John Schaefer. You can listen to the episode here. The latest video shot at the recording sessions for How I Knew Her at Prairie Sun Studios, for "Why Did You Marry," is now available to watch here as well, via Dawn's YouTube channel.