Orchestra Boabab continues its US tour, bringing music from its latest release, Made in Dakar, to New York City for two free shows, today and tomorrow. This evening at 7 PM ET, the seminal Senegalese band will perform at Rockefeller Park on the Hudson River in downtown Manhattan as part of the summer's River to River Festival of free outdoor performances. Tomorrow, the group will head to Brooklyn's MetroTech center for a noon event as part of the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Rhythm & Blues Festival.

Ry Cooder's new album, I, Flathead, releases today and follows Chavez Ravine (2005) and My Name Is Buddy (2007) as the third and final album in Cooder's California trilogy. Two versions of the new record are available: the standard CD as well as a deluxe package with both the CD and the accompanying 95-page novella that Ry wrote in conjunction with the album songs, told from the perspective of the fictitious musician Kash Buk and featuring an oddball cast of characters and car obsessives from California's drag-racing salt flats in the 1960s.

Harps and Angels, Randy Newman's first album of new music in nearly a decade, is due out on Nonesuch August 5, and already, CBS Sunday Morning's Bill Flanagan is calling it one of the summer's best.

Orchestra Baobab are currently touring the States with songs from their latest release, Made in Dakar, stopping at the Bonnaroo Festival in Tennessee this past weekend to perform a set that PopMatters calls "the gem of the festival." Tonight they're in Western Massachusetts to play Northampton's Pearl Street Nightclub and head further east at the end of the week for a set at the Somerville Theater, outside Boston, on Saturday. The Boston Globe's Andrew Gilbert says the band is "sounding more soulful than ever" on the new album.

Emmylou Harris's new album, All I Intended to Be, hits stores today. "Like cool water on a hot day," writes the Boston Globe's Sarah Rodman, "Emmylou Harris's bruised-angel voice remains a welcome balm." After visiting the Today show this morning, Emmylou spends a few more days in New York City to perform on the Late Show with David Letterman Thursday night and, earlier that evening, at the flagship Barnes & Noble store in Union Square, beginning at 7 PM.

Emmylou Harris will celebrate tomorrow's release of All I Intended to Be, her first solo album since 2003's Stumble into Grace, with a performance on the Today show on NBC. The show airs from 7-11 AM ET. Visit msnbc.com for more information.

The new album receives four stars in The Times (UK). Reviewer Victoria Segal praises Emmylou as being "not about musical bling or showbiz flash, just the softly burnished magic of a voice rich in experience and empathy."

Sam Phillips's recent Nonesuch release, Don't Do Anything, is her first self-produced album, and, writes Time Out New York's Mikael Wood in a four-star review, "Phillips fills the role masterfully here, adorning her romantic confessions with a painter's palette of avant-folk details ... Bewitching." ...

T Bone Burnett and the Raising Sand tour with Robert Plant and Alison Krauss have made their way to New York City for two shows at Madison Square Garden. While in New York, T Bone stops by WNYC's Soundcheck to discuss Tooth of Crime, his recent Nonesuch release, and his efforts to improve sound quality in the digital age.

k.d. lang's extensive tour of Canada with songs from her latest Nonesuch release, Watershed, continues this week, after several stops across the expanse of her native land, which recently announced that she would be among the newest inductees to Canada's Walk of Fame. "Still thrills, this voice," says the StarPhoenix's Joanne Paulson, after last week's show in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

This past Saturday, Christina Courtin, whose Nonesuch debut is slated for next year, joined the Knights, the chamber orchestra in which she plays violin, in a concert at NYC's Washington Irving High School. The evening's program paired Beethoven's "Pastoral" Symphony with Courtin's own works. "Ms. Courtin's music and her unaffected vocal style call to mind the soulful, atmospheric sound of the late 1960s," says the New York Times review: "early Joni Mitchell at times, with an occasional touch of Laura Nyro and the vaguest hint of Janis Joplin."

Sam Phillips's new album, Don't Do Anything, is out Tuesday, and she'll celebrate by kicking off a two-week tour of in-store performances at Borders from coast to coast, starting with her hometown store in LA. Rolling Stone picks "Little Plastic Life" as a standout track off the record, including the song in its "Single Minded" list. "The magnificent Sam Phillips returns with a song that demonstrates her knack for blending curious vocals with a big parched strum," writes Rolling Stone. "To put it another way: she was Feist before there was Feist." Beliefnet says of the new album: "This underrated singer's unique vocal stylings are at their finest here, and the musical arrangements are masterful." The site lauds Sam's "prowess as an artist of true distinction," one who "still has the courage to encapsulate her emotions and experiences in her music in a way few artists ever do."

Bill Frisell's latest release, History, Mystery, receives five stars from the Manchester Evening News (UK). On the album, Bill's "mellifluous guitar, enhanced by pedals and switches, interacts with a genteel string trio and flesh and blood drummer." For the "ethereal/beautiful" music on History, Mystery, "Frisell creates a world full of mystery, enigma and romance, transforming classic Americana like "A Change Is Gonna Come" along the way. Two CDs doesn't seem to overstretch a great artist at his peak."