Shawn Colvin and Mary Chapin Carpenter kick off a series of tour dates in the UK and Ireland with a performance at the Sage Gateshead tonight, followed by shows in Dublin, Derby, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Liverpool, London, and Cambridge. 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.

The Black Keys and Punch Brothers play the sold-out Austin City Limits Festival ... Laurie Anderson brings Dirtday! to Long Island ... Billy Bragg launches New Zealand tour ... Carolina Chocolate Drops take show from UK to France ... Ry Cooder celebrates Woody Guthrie at The Kennedy Center ... Jeremy Denk tours with Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center ... Dr. John & Blind Boys of Alabama take Spirituals to Funk tour to San Diego ... Pat Metheny's Unity Band closes out tour in NYC, Boston ... Sara Watkins tours Virginia and Ohio ... and more ...

London-based singer/songwriter Lianne La Havas returns to the US next month for three headlining shows: in the DC area, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. La Havas also makes her debut performance on the Late Show with David Letterman on November 8 and on Conan November 14. Nonesuch has just released an iTunes-exclusive live EP, featuring La Havas' performance at London’s iTunes Festival last month, with five songs from her set opening for Alicia Keys.

Billy Bragg launches a tour of New Zealand and Australia this Friday, October 12, in celebration of the life and legacy of Woody Guthrie, on the 100th anniversary of the folk legend’s birth. The shows will feature songs from the Mermaid Avenue albums, in which Bragg and Wilco's Jeff Tweedy set Guthrie's words to music, as well as songs from throughout Bragg's career. The New Zealand leg includes stops in Auckland, Wellington, Dunedin, and Christchurch; the Australia leg in Melbourne, Hobart, Canberra, Brisbane, Sydney, Adelaide, and Perth.

Dr. John hits the road with a four-piece band and The Blind Boys of Alabama for the Spirituals to Funk tour, starting tonight in California. Based on the legendary Carnegie Hall Spirituals to Swing concerts of the 1930s, Spirituals to Funk features an integrated show that explores the connections between jazz, blues, and gospel, all under Dr. John's musical direction. "Musical pairings don’t come much more inspired," says the San Diego Union-Tribune. The tour will visit 30 cities and towns in 14 states across the US.

Tour Rehearsal Tapes, a new digital EP from The Black Keys, is out today on Nonesuch Records. Available exclusively on iTunes for the first two weeks, the EP features six songs recorded live in the studio during December 2011. The EP comes as the duo’s acclaimed 2011 full-length album, El Camino, is officially certified RIAA Platinum in the US. It is also Platinum in Ireland and UK; double Platinum in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand; and Gold in Belgium and France. The band’s 2010 breakthrough album, Brothers, is also certified RIAA Platinum.

Natalie Merchant has teamed up with award-winning children's book illustrator Barbara McClintock for a new picture book based on Leave Your Sleep, Merchant's album of classic children's poetry adapted to music. Frances Foster Books will publish this beautiful hard cover, 48-page, full-color book including a CD with 19 songs, available November 13, 2012. It is now available to pre-order in the Nonesuch Store. Watch a video preview of the book here.

Emmylou Harris and Sara Watkins perform at the 12th annual Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, the free festival in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park ... The Black Keys play two nights at LA's Staples Center ... Carolina Chocolate Drops launch European tour in Galway ... Fatoumata Diawara closes out US tour in North Carolina ... Gidon Kremer & Kremerata Baltica play Esterházy Palace in Austria ... Kronos Quartet opens for Amon Tobin, joins Santa Rosa Symphony ... Jessica Lea Mayfield is in Birmingham ... Brad Mehldau has four solo sets at NYC's Jazz at Lincoln Center ... Pat Metheny's Unity Band tours the South ... Punch Brothers are at The New Yorker Festival ... and more ...

Carolina Chocolate Drops, who gave a pair of rapturously received sold-out shows in Glasgow and London at the start of the year, are bringing their exhilarating live show back to the UK and to Ireland, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany as part of a European tour that kicks off with shows in Galway, Dublin, and London and closes out at the end of the month with three special shows in Germany with label mates Punch Brothers.

Congratulations to Randy Newman, a 2013 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Nominee! For the first time, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is offering fans the opportunity to officially participate in the induction selection process, tallying a collective “fans’ ballot” with the other ballots to choose the 2013 inductees. Vote for your favorite today! The 28th Annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony will be held in LA on April 18, 2013, broadcast on HBO at a later date.

Congratulations to Chris Thile, who has been named a 2012 MacArthur Fellow. Thile was among the 23 new MacArthur Fellows, selected by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The annual fellowship, often referred to as the "Genius" grant, offers an unrestricted award of $500,000 to individuals who, in the Foundation's words, "have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction." Watch Thile discuss his work and the fellowship in a MacArthur Foundation video here.

The Black Keys launch an arena tour of the western US in Fresno, California, tonight, including stops at the famed Santa Barbara Bowl, the Staples Center in LA, and in Arizona and New Mexico. Tegan and Sara open. Just announced: The Black Keys will headline Lollapalooza Brazil and Lollapalooza Chile next year. At the Global Festival this past Saturday, the band "tore through a set of searing, hard-riffing rock," raves MTV, "one that had the 60,000 who packed Central Park's Great Lawn losing their collective minds."