Natalie Merchant was a guest on the Sheroes podcast hosted by Carmel Holt. They spoke at the Newport Folk Festival in July, where Merchant took part in a number of special collaborative performances. They discuss her career, some of what she’s been focused on for the past few years, and what’s ahead. They also spoke for Mixtape Memoir on Sonos, looking back at Merchant’s life through songs. You can hear both here.

Hurray for the Riff Raff kicks off a tour of the Pacific Northwest with two sets at Pickathon in Oregon this weekend. There's more great live music ahead around the world from John Adams, Lake Street Dive, Punch Brothers, and Molly Tuttle.

Rhiannon Giddens was on PBS NewsHour to talk with Jeffrey Brown about her new role as artistic director of Silkroad, with whom she just concluded her first tour. "I love getting thrown something that I have never done before, but that I think I have the goods to do, but I have to figure out how to do it,” Giddens tells Brown. “And so I always say yes first and figure it out later.” You can watch Giddens’s conversation with Brown, who calls her "a boundless bridger of musical worlds and styles," here.

The Newport Jazz Festival features performances from Cécile McLorin Salvant, Sam Gendel, and Makaya McCraven, who also performs at SummerStage in NYC's Central Park. There's more great live music ahead around the world from The Black Keys, Rhiannon Giddens, Punch Brothers, Steve Reich, Tyondai Braxton, Caroline Shaw & Sō Percussion, and Molly Tuttle.

The original video for k.d. lang’s Top 40 hit song “Constant Craving,” from the double-Platinum-selling 1992 album Ingénue, has been re-mastered from the original film materials in 4K HD by Craigman Digital featuring audio from the 2017 Ingénue: 25th Anniversary Edition remaster. The song earned lang the Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Performance in 1993. The video was directed by Mark Romanek. "I'm so happy the video has been updated and hope fans can enjoy it more now that it's high res!" You can watch it here.

Punch Brothers, Watchhouse, and Sarah Jarosz join forces for the second American Acoustic US tour starting tonight, with dates in Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, New Haven, and more. Chris Thile says: “It took five years, but I’m elated to announce the second traveling edition of American Acoustic for this summer. Joining my fellow Punch Brothers and me in front of a pair of large condenser microphones will be our dear friends, Watchhouse and Sarah Jarosz, for a collaborative evening of music that traverses our respective catalogues and celebrates being together.” They've released a preview of what's to come with a cover of Sufjan Stevens' "Mystery of Love" performed live from Telluride; you can watch it here.

Congratulations to Molly Tuttle, who, already a four-time International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) Award–winner, is nominated in five categories for the 2022 IBMAs: Entertainer of the Year, Album of the Year (Crooked Tree), Female Vocalist of the Year, Guitar Player of the Year, and Instrumental Group of the Year (Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway). Golden Highway's own Bronwyn Keith-Hynes is up for Fiddle Player of the Year. The ceremony will be held in Raleigh on September 29.

Molly Tuttle and her band Golden Highway have released a new live performance video for her song "San Francisco Blues," from their new album, Crooked Tree. The video was filmed during their sold-out record release show at Nashville’s legendary Station Inn this past spring. You can watch it here.

Jeff Parker stopped by Amoeba Music in San Francisco to share some of what he’s been listening to for their What’s in My Bag series, including music by Madlib; Eddie Harris; Doug Hammond & David Durrah; Elements; Ray Charles; Sly & Robbie Meet King Tubby; Sphere; The John Carter Octet; Jakob Bro, Arve Henriksen, and Jorge Rossy; Zawinul; and William S. Fischer. You can take a look inside here.

The Newport Folk Festival features performances from Rhiannon Giddens, Hurray for the Riff Raff, Natalie Merchant, Taj Mahal, and two-thirds of Mountain Man ... Laurie Anderson performs at the Hirschhorn in DC ... The Black Keys are in NY, NJ ... Kronos Quartet are at Rancho Nicasio in California ... Brad Mehldau, Ian Bostridge perform at Verbier Festival ... Rachael & Vilray are in upstate NY ... Cécile McLorin Salvant plays festivals in Switzerland and France ... Molly Tuttle is in Oregon ...

Wilco has released a live version of “Pot Kettle Black,” from their famed July 23, 2002, concert at The Pageant in St. Louis, MO, featured in the forthcoming Super Deluxe and Deluxe editions of the band’s landmark 2002 album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, out this fall. You can hear it here.

Nonesuch Records releases the first recordings of Steve Reich’s Runner (2016) and Music for Ensemble and Orchestra (2018), performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and conducted by Susanna Mälkki, available digitally and on CD on September 30, 2022; a vinyl LP version will be released on December 2. The New York Times calls Runner “a calmly luminous orchestral piece with the pulsating, propulsive rhythms that animate much of Mr. Reich’s music.” The San Francisco Chronicle says that Music for Ensemble and Orchestra “is a beautiful and dramatically charged masterpiece, but its impact goes even further than that.” The album track Runner: I. Sixteenths can be heard here.