The Black Keys have been nominated for three Billboard Music Awards: Top Alternative Artist and Top Rock Album and Top Alternative Album for their album Brothers. The guys are back on the road, performing at the Mesa Amphitheatre tonight. They play the first of several upcoming festival headlining appearances at Coachella tomorrow, which will be webcast live on YouTube. Additional upcoming performances include headlining sets at The Hangout Festival, Summerfest, Bonnaroo, and Outside Lands. Check out a behind-the-scenes look at their unforgettable "Howlin' for You" video here.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has announced that Amadou & Mariam have been appointed Ambassadors against Hunger to raise awareness among Europeans of the problem of global hunger and efforts by WFP and the European Union to combat it. The duo has just returned from Haiti, where they visited WFP projects funded by the EU and performed a concert with Haitian musicians.

Emmylou Harris's new album, Hard Bargain, is due out on Nonesuch April 26, less than two weeks away. A deluxe edition includes a DVD featuring six performances interspersed with interviews. The video for "Goodnight Old World," from the deluxe edition of the album, received its exclusive world premiere on CMT this morning. You can watch the video, directed by Jack Spencer, here.

Dawn Upshaw and Donnacha Dennehy are in the midst of a seven-day workshop at Carnegie Hall, mentoring composers and singers, with two culminating performances this weekend. The New Yorker's Alex Ross has Dennehy's forthcoming album, Grá agus Bás, in current rotation. The Baltimore Sun describes Upshaw's recent Kennedy Center performances as "heavenly." Gramophone declares her 1989 recording of Barber's Knoxville: Summer of 1915 the definitive one, saying, "if you want just one recording of Knoxville, it should be Upshaw's. In no other version is the intimacy of Barber's music so poignantly conveyed."

k.d. lang and the Siss Boom Bang's new album, Sing it Loud, is out today. To celebrate, lang and the band performed the album opener "I Confess" on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno last night. Watch the complete episode here. The Los Angeles Times says: "The big, beautiful voice of k.d. lang swoops, purrs and soars through the 10 songs on Sing it Loud.” With her new band, lang "has found her guitar groove again." The Ottawa Citizen calls the album "a torch-and-twangtinged stunner."

Tell Me, the highly anticipated sophomore release from Jessica Lea Mayfield, is out now on Nonesuch Records. In celebration of the record, Mayfield will continue to tour the US and Europe throughout 2011, including an appearance at the 2011 Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival as well as a newly announced series of special shows with The Avett Brothers.

James Farm, the self-titled debut album from the collaborative band featuring saxophonist Joshua Redman, pianist Aaron Parks, bassist Matt Penman, and drummer Eric Harland, is due out on Nonesuch on April 26. NPR is streaming the album in full as an NPR First Listen till then. "It's a bit like four of the best in the business just called a 'session' one day, but instead of standards, they each brought in their own music," says NPR. "And this band's labor has clearly proven fruitful."

k.d. lang and the Siss Boom Bang will perform "I Confess" on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno tonight. The song is the lead single from Sing it Loud, due out tomorrow on Nonesuch Records. USA Today says the album "nods to lang's alt-country roots while reinforcing her reputation as a singer of genre-defying dexterity and beauty." To celebrate its release, lang and her new band will play the album in its entirety tonight at Los Angeles's Troubadour and at (Le) Poisson Rouge in New York City this Thursday, April 14. They'll appear on Good Morning America on Thursday and The View this Friday morning, April 15.

Legendary AfroBeat drummer Tony Allen will be the guest on WNYC's Soundcheck today. He will talk with the show's host, John Schaefer, and perform songs from his album Secret Agent. "The great Nigerian bandleader Fela Kuti had a not-so-secret weapon when he was creating the funk-infused style known as Afrobeat in the 1970s," says WNYC. "That weapon was drummer Tony Allen. A legend among drummers of all styles, Allen is still going strong." Allen launches a North American tour this week with special guest Amp Fiddler.

Laurie Anderson, Philip Glass, John Zorn perform in NY's Concert for Japan ... Carolina Chocolate Drops are on Minnesota Public Television ... Ben Folds plays his home state of North Carolina ... Emmylou Harris plays a benefit for Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music ... Kronos Quartet performs Steve Reich's WTC 9/11 in Maryland ... The Low Anthem plays UK, Ireland ... Jessica Lea Mayfield has an all-Kentucky weekend ... Brad Mehldau Trio tours Midwest ... Dawn Upshaw joins National Symphony Orchestra at The Kennedy Center ... and more ...

The official music video for The Low Anthem's "Boeing 737," off the band's new album, Smart Flesh, has premiered on SPIN. In the video, the band goes "1800s retro," says SPIN's Dan Jackson, "as members of an oddball circus, who battle a group of high-wire walkers. It's totally weird yet totally poignant." The new video was directed by End of the Road Pictures, which created the beautiful animated video for The Low Anthem's "Charlie Darwin." Tickets are now on sale for the band's spring and summer tour.

The Randy Newman Songbook Vol. 2, on which Newman takes a fresh look at both classic and more recent work in new solo recordings of his celebrated songs, is now available for pre-order in the Nonesuch Store with a limited-edition poster, a number of which will be signed by Newman. The poster features the original cover art from Newman's 1968 self-titled debut album, which marks the starting point of the new album's repertoire.