Sara Watkins kicked off a months-long tour as special guest of Jackson Browne over the weekend. "Cheerful and charming, Watkins was totally at ease," says the Charleston City Paper of Sunday's show. "Watkins also handled the melodies and harmonies with cool authority, and she dazzled with several fiddle solos that demonstrated her virtuosity." Her new album, Sun Midnight Sun, on which Browne makes a guest appearance, is due out on vinyl next Tuesday, July 24, and is available to pre-order in the Nonesuch Store.

Singer/songwriter Fatoumata Diawara’s debut album, Fatou, will be released in North America on August 28, 2012, and is now available to pre-order in the Nonesuch Store. Diawara will tour the US this fall. She has been receiving rave reviews since the album’s release in the UK and Europe last year. The Telegraph says “this stylish debut doesn’t put a foot wrong"; Pitchfork calls it "beguiling." Diawara uses elements of jazz, pop, and funk along with her ancestral Wassoulou tradition in her songwriting. John Paul Jones, Toumani Diabate, and Tony Allen all make guest appearances on Fatou.

With the Olympic Games set to begin in two weeks, Kronos Quartet joins in the Cultural Olympiad's London 2012 Festival with a Glasgow performance of Terry Riley's Sun Rings ... Punch Brothers perform at three UK festivals ... Billy Bragg celebrates Woody Guthrie's centennial in NYC ... Carolina Chocolate Drops tour the South ... Shawn Colvin is on NPR's World Cafe ... Dr. John tours Europe ... k.d. lang plays Vegas ... Brad Mehldau Trio, Pat Metheny Unity Band, Joshua Redman all tour Italy ... Sara Watkins plays Praire Home Companion, kicks off tour with Jackson Browne ... and more ...

Shawn Colvin is the guest on NPR's World Cafe today. She discusses her memoir, Diamond in the Rough, and performs songs from her new album, All Fall Down with Buddy Miller, who produced the album, and bassist Viktor Krauss. To celebrate the release of All Fall Down, iVillage is giving away a beautiful Martin 000-15M Mahogany Dreadnought Guitar. Colvin continues her summer tour with two concerts at The Birchmere outside DC next week.

Sara Watkins begins a months-long tour as special guest of Jackson Browne this weekend; she also joins A Prairie Home Companion at LA's Hollywood Bowl for its final show of the season. The LA Times, reviewing a recent Watkins set, says: "Touring in support of her excellent new album," she performed "well-crafted, honest fiddle, guitar and drum music that drew not only on the bluegrass tradition but also hinted at old-time string band tunes, tossed in a touch of Texas swing, a little dose of rock and a certain Watkins family confidence that finds sustenance in adventure."

Saturday, July 14, 2012, marks what would have been folk legend Woody Guthrie's 100th birthday. Billy Bragg, who, with Wilco, put music to Guthrie's words on the acclaimed Mermaid Avenue albums, has been touring North America with those songs, culminating this weekend with a set at the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival in Guthrie's Oklahoma hometown, multiple events in his adopted hometown of New York City, and a final show in Maryland. Bragg begins his European summer tour later this month.

The Pat Metheny Unity Band—Chris Potter on sax and bass clarinet, Antonio Sanchez on drums, and Ben Williams on bass—takes its month-long European tour to Italy this week. That follows Sunday's show at London's Barbican Hall, to which the Guardian gives four stars, calling the Unity Band "a group of blazing virtuosi with musical intelligence to match." Jazzwise says: "Metheny’s solos remain a thing of wonder: melodic at any tempo and packed with fresh ideas." The European tour continues through July 22; the US tour begins at the Caramoor Festival on July 29.

Emmylou Harris, who is currently touring North America performing songs from throughout her storied career in music, was recently featured on the Today show, discussing her other great passion: Bonaparte's Retreat, the non-profit dog rescue she founded out of her home in Nashville. Harris introduces viewers to her own rescue dog Bella and plays a bit of the song she wrote about her, "Big Black Dog," off her latest album, Hard Bargain. Watch the complete Today show story here.

Punch Brothers launched the European leg of their summer tour at Denmark's Roskilde Festival on Friday. Their entire set was captured on video; watch it in full here. The band's European tour continues into next week and includes three more festival dates in the UK and headline shows in Paris and Dublin. And check out a photo gallery from Punch Brothers' recent show as Wilco's special guest at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre.

Caetano Veloso, an eight-time Latin Grammy winner and two-time Grammy winner, will be celebrated as the 2012 Latin Recording Academy Person of the Year on November 14 in Las Vegas. Songs from Veloso's catalog will be performed by an array of artists and friends of the honoree. A portion of the net proceeds from the gala will benefit Veloso's chosen charity, Fundación Viva Cazuza in Brazil—a not-for-profit HIV prevention and treatment organization for children and young people—as well as The Latin Recording Academy's outreach and education programs. The celebration will precede the XIII Annual Latin Grammy Awards, which will take place on November 15.

Ry Cooder’s new album, Election Special, due out on CD and vinyl on August 21, is a wake-up call as the US heads into the fall election season. The album is now available to pre-order in the Nonesuch Store in a very special bundle. Show your Election Special pride with an exclusive campaign-style button and bumper sticker; pre-orders also include an instant download of the album's opening track, "Mutt Romney Blues."

British singer/songwriter/guitarist Lianne La Havas' debut album, Is Your Love Big Enough?, produced by Matt Hales (Aqualung), is due out in the US August 7 on Nonesuch Records and is now available to pre-order in the Nonesuch Store; the first 100 pre-orders include an exclusive print signed by La Havas. The album is out now on Warners in the UK and Ireland, earning four-star reviews from Q, the Independent, the Daily Telegraph, and the Irish Times, Independent, and Herald. "It’s always been clear that La Havas has a special voice, and so it proves here," says the BBC. "Her vocals are soulful, edged with lounge-bar smoke, but each note is sung with force and precision ... It’s a voice that invites you in, and only the hardest heart will resist the offer."