Dr. John's collaboration with The Black Keys' Dan Auerbach, Locked Down, landed at #33 on the Billboard 200 this week, making it, remarkably, the highest chart debut in the New Orleans legend and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer’s 50-plus-year career. It also debuted at #1 on Billboard's Blues Albums chart and #8 on the Rock Albums chart, and had an excellent first week outside the US as well, entering the charts in the top 100 in many countries. Locked Down has received rave reviews everywhere from SPIN and Pitchfork to The Guardian and NPR, with many echoing David Fricke’s assessment in Rolling Stone that “Dr. John has made his best album in four decades.”

Amadou & Mariam's new album, Folila, released this week in the US, has been named Album of the Week by Stereogum, which says that "at its heart it’s a euphoric psychedelic rock album." For all of its collaborators, like Santigold and TV on the Radio, Folila finds "every musical influence melting seamlessly into the whole," making for "a fun and playful artifact from two crazily gifted pop polyglots at work." The track “Dougou Badia,” featuring Santigold, is in The New Yorker's Listening Booth. Amadou & Mariam performed an unplugged version of the song "Cherie" for Daily Candy. They performed an acoustic duo version of "Wily Kataso" for NPR, which you can watch here.

The Black Keys will be headlining the 2012 Lollapalooza festival, which runs from August 3 to 5 in Chicago's Grant Park. Their fellow headliners include the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Black Sabbath, and Jack White. Also performing are Amadou & Mariam, whose new album, Folila, is out in the US this week. The Black Keys headline Coachella this week and next then launch the next leg of their North American arena tour with special guests Arctic Monkeys.

Senegalese singer-songwriter Cheikh Lô has returned to North America to play a series of venues and festivals featuring music from his critically acclaimed fifth album, Jamm. This will be the first opportunity for North American audiences to hear Lô performing songs from the album since its release in July 2011. Its "easy rhythms underpin music of warmth and grace," says the Washington Post. The tour begins in Washington, DC, tonight and includes a performance at Carnegie Hall in New York, sets at the New Orleans Jazz Fest and Louisiana International Festival, and shows in St. Louis, Ann Arbor, Chapel Hill, Ithaca, Montreal, and Toronto.

Amadou & Mariam's new album, Folila, is out now in the US. The album epitomizes the duo's embrace of collaboration, with contributions by Santigold, TV on the Radio, Theophilus London, and others. Folila may be "this duo’s most enjoyable disc yet," says the AP. Newsweek calls them "Magic, indeed." The Philadelphia Inquirer says the duo is "adding new elements to a richly varied approach that has served them well for years." The Christian Science Monitor raves: "From start to finish, Folila can barely contain the joy." Watch an acoustic performance of two album tracks here, via The Fader.

Billy Bragg will launch a tour of Europe and North America this spring and summer in celebration of the 100th anniversary of Woody Guthrie's birth. The tour, titled The Ain't Nobody That Can Sing Like Me Tour, follows the Nonesuch release of Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions, on April 21, and will feature songs from that collection, in which Bragg and Wilco's Jeff Tweedy set Guthrie's words to music. The tour will take Bragg to concert halls and summer festivals, including the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival in Okemah, Oklahoma. The North American leg of the tour begins at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago on June 22.

A new production of John Adams's groundbreaking first opera Nixon in China, led by director Chen Shi-Zheng, receives its premiere performance at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris tonight. Musical director Alexander Briger leads the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, the Châtelet choir, and a cast featuring baritone Franco Pompini as President Richard Nixon. Performances begin tonight and run through next Wednesday, April 18. Watch a preview of the new production here. Nonesuch Records reissued the Grammy-winning original cast recording of Nixon in China last year.

Dr. John was joined by Dan Auerbach and the band from his new album, Locked Down, for the live premiere of Locked Down at BAM last week. "Physical and spiritual, earthly and supernatural, a memento mori and a promise of transcendence—all were aspects of Dr. John’s music for the night," reports the New York Times. Rolling Stone says the "band's potent sound and focused energy pushed the New Orleans legend into new sonic territory." The Times-Picayune calls the new album "timeless." The Morton Report says: "This is prime time light-up-your-eyeballs sound, complete with twisting rhythms, curvalicious horn lines, croaky vocals, and irresistible freedom at the heart of what the players are putting down." The Star Telegram calls it "one of 2012's great albums thus far." The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel calls it "phenomenal."

The Public Theater in New York City has announced its 2012-2013 Season, which includes the world premiere of the David Byrne and Fatboy Slim musical Here Lies Love, directed by Alex Timbers. The musical explores the life of former Filipino First Lady Imelda Marcos. Performances begin April 2, 2013. Nonesuch released the song cycle recording of Here Lies Love in 2010, featuring Florence + the Machine, Natalie Merchant, Santigold, St. Vincent, and more.

Carolina Chocolate Drops brought their US tour to California over the weekend for three stops with special guest David Wax Museum: at UCLA's Royce Hall on Friday, Slim’s in San Francisco on Saturday, and the Mystic Theater in Petaluma on Sunday. "These are not only obsessive music-historians but also expert players whose fret-board fingers traveled miles over the course of the night," reports the Los Angeles Times. "The Carolina Chocolate Drops didn’t just manifest this music but proved how much energy remains within these songs." The band heads next to New Mexico and Arizona.

Punch Brothers were the musical guests on The Late Show with David Letterman last night. The band performed "This Girl," off their new album, Who's Feeling Young Now?. Watch the performance here. Punch Brothers launch the latest leg of their US tour a week from Saturday with a live broadcast performance of A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor. The tour includes a stop in Austin for a taping of Austin City Limits and a sold-out show at Antone's and wraps up with a sold-out LA Bluegrass Situation show at Largo. Several summer festival dates follow.

Joshua Redman and Brad Mehldau head out for a duo tour of North America, beginning with a concert at Orchestra Hall in Detroit tonight. From there, the two make stops in Georgia, Missouri, North Carolina, Indiana, Illinois, Ontario, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. Amidst the duo tour dates, Redman and his Trio have a week’s residency at NYC's Village Vanguard, April 17–22. The Brad Mehldau Trio tours the US starting next month with a Denver concert featuring Timothy Andres.