Dr. John kicks off a month-long summer tour of Europe and the UK, starting at the Hop Farm Festival on Friday and making stops in cities like Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin, and London and festivals like Roskilde, Montreux, and Nice. Joining Dr. John for the tour is his band The Lower 911, featuring Jon Cleary; Trombone Shorty & New Orleans Avenue also join for a few shows. Dr. John returns to the US in August for the next leg of his North American tour, starting at the Newport Jazz Festival.

Punch Brothers have helped launch a new segment on MTV Hive called Stop/Watch, in which artists are challenged to complete a song in 60 seconds. In the inaugural session, Punch Brothers offer a new take on their song "New York City," a tune off their latest album, Who's Feeling Young Now?. “'Silky' isn’t a term often used to describe bluegrass yet it’s applicable for Punch Brothers‘ 60-second rendition of 'New York City,'” says MTV Hive, noting "Thile’s soulful vocals" and "the song’s jazzy elegance." Watch it here.

Shawn Colvin kicked off her US summer tour at the Somerville Theatre outside of Boston last week. The concert found Colvin in "sterling voice," reports the Boston Globe, with a strong connection between her and her fans on full display. The concert featured songs from Colvin's new album, All Fall Down, which the Globe calls "superb," all delivered "with perfect pitch and quiet charm." The tour continues along the East Coast this week.

Chris Thile is a guest on today's Here and Now, from NPR member station WBUR in Boston. Thile talks about his lifelong love of the mandolin, from the first time he saw the instrument, at the age of two, to some of the many projects in which that has manifest itself, including Punch Brothers. Listen to the interview here. Thile and guitarist Michael Daves perform a duo show at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville this Thursday; Punch Brothers are at ROMP: Bluegrass Roots & Branches Festival in Owensboro, Kentucky, on Friday.

Following the US Supreme Court's ruling in the case against Arizona immigration law SB 1070, the Los Angeles Times' Pop & Hiss blog put together a list of "five great songs about immigration that are worth revisiting," including Ry Cooder's "Quicksand" along with songs by Rage Against the Machine, Bruce Springsteen, U2, Woody Guthrie, and Led Zeppelin. "For decades, Cooder has written blues-rock at the junction of L.A.'s Anglo and Latino cultures," says the LA Times. "'Quicksand' is one of his most vivid character sketches about a harrowing border crossing." Cooder wrote the song in response to the passing of SB 1070 in 2010 and donated the proceeds from its sale to MALDEF, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund.

Singer/songwriter Fatoumata Diawara’s debut album, Fatou, will be released in North America by World Circuit / Nonesuch Records on August 28, 2012. Diawara 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. Watch the official video for the album track "Bissa" here.

British singer/guitarist Lianne La Havas' full-length album Is Your Love Big Enough? is due out in the United States on August 7 via Nonesuch Records. The title track—which was recently featured on NPR Music’s list of “5 Songs Public Radio Can't Stop Playing” and comes recommended by The Root—is out today on iTunes in the US, paired with the album version of the song “Lost & Found,” both mastered for iTunes.

Shawn Colvin is the subject of a feature profile on PBS NewsHour. She spoke with the show's Art Beat correspondent Jeffrey Brown, sharing some stories from her new memoir, Diamond in the Rough, and offers solo acoustic performances of two songs off her new album, All Fall Down: the title track and "Change Is on the Way," which she co-wrote with Patty Griffin. Watch the interview and performances here.

Pianist Jeremy Denk recently invited NPR into his NYC apartment as he prepared his "piano boot camp" to practice the Ligeti Piano Etudes featured on his new album, Ligeti/Beethoven, for a video posted last week. Now come the performances themselves: three etudes from Book 1—"Fanfares," "Arc-en-ciel," and "Automne à Varsovie." Watch them here.

Shawn Colvin and Mary Chapin Carpenter will embark on a series of tour dates in the UK and Ireland this October. 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. Tickets go on sale this Thursday, June 28.

The Telluride Bluegrass Festival runs through the weekend with performances from k.d. lang and the Punch Brothers ... Björk brings Biophilia to Spain ... Billy Bragg brings Mermaid Avenue to the Midwest ... David Byrne's Here Lives Love plays at MASS MoCA ... Carolina Chocolate Drops and Shawn Colvin are in Connecticut ... Jeremy Denk plays Liszt with San Francisco Symphony ... Adam Guettel's Floyd Collins is in Chicago ... The Low Anthem and Pat Metheny are in Germany ... Natalie Merchant plays the Pacific Northwest ... Rokia Traoré concludes three-show series in London ... and more ...

Billy Bragg launches a North American tour this weekend 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 recent release of Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions, and features songs from that collection, in which Bragg and Wilco's Jeff Tweedy set Guthrie's words to music, as well as favorites from throughout Bragg's career. The tour begins with shows at Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music and The Ark in Ann Arbor this weekend.