After releasing her debut solo album last week, Sara Watkins took to the road for the start of a monthlong tour in support of the new record. She played with Old Crow Medicine Show through the weekend, and tonight, she performs "Long Hot Summer Days" off the new album on NBC's Late Night with Jimmy Fallon with the album's producer, Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones. Look for support to come from Jimmy's house band, The Roots, as well.

Sara Watkins's self-titled solo debut is out today on Nonesuch. To mark the occasion, Sara is in New York City, where she'll perform on Soundcheck this afternoon at 2 PM ET, with her brother and Nickel Creek band mate, Sean Watkins, and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers keyboardist Benmont Tench, both of whom are among the stellar list of guest artists on the new album. Sara begins an extensive US tour later this week and returns to New York on Monday to perform on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

k.d. lang joins fellow Canadians Feist, Diana Krall, and (by marriage) Elvis Costello in presenting at Canada's Juno Awards this Sunday. k.d. has also been nominated as both the Artist of the Year and Producer of the Year for her 2008 Nonesuch release, Watershed. Also this weekend, k.d.'s North American tour takes her to California and Nevada. Her recent Portland, Oregon, performance led The Oregonian to exclaim: "There are a lot of good singers out there. kd lang is a great one." London's National Portrait Gallery might agree, having named k.d. among the Gay Icons in its exhibit of that name, opening this summer, which also includes David Hockney, Harvey Milk, Walt Whitman, Tchaikovsky, and Nelson Mandela.

In a segment exploring the recent and, in many ways, unexpected resurgence of vinyl, ABC News's Nightline says, "Those big old discs are back in a big way," with sales up 89% last year. Anchor Terry Moran spoke with Washington, DC's Crooked Beats record store owner Bill Daley, who shows Moran Wilco's Sky Blue Sky LP as an example of a recent innovation in the field: the inclusion of the complete album on CD, inside the LP sleeve. Wilco was an early pioneer in offering both formats in a single package with the release of that record in May 2007.

David Byrne, fresh off two stellar performances at New York's Radio City Music Hall this past weekend, stopped by the Colbert Report last night to chat and perform live in the studio. "You've always been sort of an innovator," offered Stephen Colbert. "When is being on the cutting edge, being innovative and fresh and new and interesting gonna get stale? Because, wouldn't it be more surprising if David Byrne did something ordinary?" Vanity Fair reports from Radio City that it's not likely to be any time soon. Staying "tuned in" is the key to his success, and "If it keeps David Byrne young, just think what it can do for you."

Keep It Hid, Dan Auerbach's recently released solo debut, earns applause from the San Francicso Chronicle. The Black Keys' singer/guitarist "digs into some serious psychedelia and soulful blues on his solo debut," says the Chronicle. "Auerbach has made a deeply personal piece that goes into dusty corners never explored by the Keys in the band's fine five albums ... [He] is a master at creating surprising, shadowy textures with reverb and repeated riffs."

Dan Auerbach will be the musical guest on tonight's Late Night with Conan O'Brien. Tune in to catch Dan perform a song off his solo debut album, Keep It Hid. The show airs on NBC starting at 12:35 AM ET. The Associated Press finds Keep It Hid "every bit as brainy, engaging and powerful as" Dan's work with The Black Keys and also sees him "stepping out, stretching a bit" on the new album. It's "full of tasty sounds," says the AP, and "shows an understanding of what really makes rock roll."

Grammy week is under way, which means not only the culminating awards ceremony, which will be held this Sunday night, but also various special events, including a conversation with and performance by Allen Toussaint tonight at the Grammy Museum, and an invitation-only ceremony honoring Toussaint and Elliott Carter with the Trustees Award Saturday night. Toussaint will also perform on the live broadcast of Sunday's awards ceremony with an eclectic group of fellow New Orleans artists. Nonesuch artists and albums have been nominated for a total of 13 Grammys this year.

The Mandé Variations, Toumani Diabaté's first solo album in more than two decades, is one of five albums CBS Sunday Morning contributor Bill Flanagan recommends as musical gift ideas "that haven't gotten the attention they deserve." Says Flanagan: "Toumani Diabaté is the master of the kora ... and he has a beautiful new album called The Mandé Variations. After a tough day looking for a parking space at the mall, this album will bring you back to a spirit of peace on Earth."

Beginning tonight, the PBS series Independent Lens will broadcast Wonders Are Many, the 2007 documentary film that captures the making of John Adams's 2004-05 opera, Doctor Atomic. The film goes behind the scenes to examine both the creation of this monumental work, leading to its world premiere at the San Francisco Opera House, and the working relationship between the longtime collaborators Adams and Sellars.

The year that began with the final season of HBO's The Wire and the Nonesuch release of the series' only soundtracks—"... and all the pieces matter": Five Years of Music from "The Wire" and Beyond Hamsterdam: Baltimore Tracks from "The Wire"—now comes to a close with the release of the complete five seasons in a single, 23-DVD box set: "a handsome, thorough and well-appointed cap to the show’s amazing run," says Paste magazine, for what "was the best show on television ... It was—is—a monument."

k.d. lang returns to The Tonight Show with Jay Leno this evening to perform a song from her latest Nonesuch release, Watershed. Also scheduled to appear on tonight's episode are actor Will Smith and Food Network celebrity chef Paula Deen. Coincidentally, Smith recently made Barbara Walters's list of the year's "most fascinating people," a distinction inaugurated in 1993 by, among others, k.d. lang.