Senegalese singer-songwriter-activist Youssou N'Dour, who released five albums on Nonesuch Records over the span of a decade, has been named Senegal's Minister of Culture and Tourism in the new government formed by Prime Minister Abdul Mbaye. N'Dour is one of 25 ministers that make up the cabinet of the country's new President, Macky Sall. N'Dour helped to celebrate Sall's inauguration with a live performance in Dakar.

On June 5, Nonesuch Records will release the new Shawn Colvin album, All Fall Down. A collection of 11 songs—eight written or co-written by Colvin—All Fall Down is her eighth studio album and the first to be produced by her longtime friend and cohort Buddy Miller (Robert Plant, Solomon Burke). Recorded in Nashville, All Fall Down features performances by Alison Krauss, Emmylou Harris, Jakob Dylan, Bill Frisell, Viktor Krauss, Brian Blade, Stuart Duncan, and Julie Miller, among others. The release of All Fall Down comes on the same date as William Morrow/HarperCollins publishes her memoir, Diamond in the Rough.

Punch Brothers will be the musical guests on The Late Show with David Letterman tonight, performing "This Girl," off their new album, Who's Feeling Young Now?. They will tape an episode of Austin City Limits on May 1 for future broadcast on the PBS performance show, marking their ACL TV debut. A new Daytrotter session from the band is now available, with three songs from Who's Feeling Young Now? plus a medley pairing songs by Beck and Hazel Dickens.

Dr. John, whose new album, Locked Down, is out this week, performed the album track "Revolution" on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon last night. He was joined by The Black Keys' Dan Auerbach, who produced Locked Down, and the album's band. Watch it here. They premiere more live music from the album at BAM this week as part of Dr. John's residency there. In a feature on Locked Down on NPR's All Things Considered, Tom Moon says: "Incredibly, in the few weeks they spent creating this, Dan Auerbach and Dr. John roused some spirits not heard from since the late 1960s and got them to speak about what it means to be alive and kicking in 2012."

Nonesuch Records will release London–based singer, songwriter, and guitarist Lianne La Havas’s debut LP this summer, following its release by Warner Bros. in the UK (exact dates TBD). The album was recorded in Brooklyn and Los Angeles last summer and was produced by Matt Hales (Aqualung). La Havas, whose first US dates were opening for Bon Iver on the band’s late 2011 Midwestern tour, made her NY debut in March at a sold-out show at the Mercury Lounge. Her first Los Angeles show will be May 22 at Bootleg Bar (tickets go on sale Friday, April 6). Additional US dates will be announced soon.

Dr. John's new album, Locked Down, is out now on CD and digitally, with the vinyl to follow on April 21, and is streaming in full all week at MSN Music. Dr. John and producer Dan Auerbach perform on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon tonight. They spoke to NPR's Morning Edition about the album's more personal side. The LA Times gives Locked Down a perfect four stars: "As Bob Dylan did with Time Out of Mind and Tom Waits did last year with Bad as Me, Dr. John does here ... creating something magical, the embodiment of everything he’s done but pushed in a clear new direction." The Seattle Times calls it "stunning." The Boston Globe says: "It's Dr. John in full splendor." The Independent on Sunday, Observer, and Financial Times all give it four stars. The Sunday Times calls it a "tour de force."

Punch Brothers will be the musical guests on The Late Show with David Letterman Wednesday night. They'll soon be hitting the road again with the next leg of their US tour, kicking things off with a live broadcast performance of A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor on Saturday, April 14. The band and fellow guests Renée Fleming, Aoife O'Donovan, and Heather Masse join Keillor and crew live at New York's Town Hall, where Punch Brothers headline later this month. Punch Brothers are featured in the latest installment of the A.V. Club's A.V. Undercover, performing The Cars' "Just What I Needed." Watch it here.

Folila, Amadou & Mariam's first studio album since 2009's acclaimed Welcome to Mali, is due out in the US next week, and is streaming in full all this week as an NPR First Listen. The album features contributions by Santigold, TV on the Radio, Nick Zinner, Theophilus London, Bassekou Kouyate, and others. "The result is richly textured," says NPR. The Daily Telegraph gives the album five stars. The Independent says the album shows "how adeptly Amadou & Mariam straddle both local and global, with a truly 'world' music." The Sunday Times of London says the collaborations "all serve the song and all are there only to enhance the unfathomably brilliant guitar work of Amadou and the effortlessly beautiful voice of Mariam."

Following the release of their critically acclaimed new album El Camino and a sold-out European tour earlier this year, The Black Keys have announced new European dates in November and December 2012. The tour includes concerts in Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Holland, and Germany. Tickets go on sale on Wednesday. As the NME wrote of the band’s recent UK tour, "The Black Keys have slowly but surely become one of the biggest bands in the world—and going by this wonderfully charged performance, it’s not difficult to understand why."

Dr. John launches his three-week residency at BAM with a Louis Armstrong tribute, then heads home to New Orleans for a free show in the NCAA Big Dance Concert Series Sunday; The Black Keys play Saturday ... Alarm Will Sound performs John Adams's Son of Chamber Symphony in Michigan ... Björk headlines Lollapalooza Chile ... Carolina Chocolate Drops launch West Coast tour in Portland and Seattle ... Shawn Colvin plays outside DC ... Jeremy Denk joins San Francisco Symphony for American Mavericks at Carnegie Hall ... Dawn Upshaw gives a recital in San Francisco ... and more ...

Dr. John, who launched his three-week residency at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) last night, is the subject of a feature article in the New York Times that looks at his career and the unexpected turn it takes on his new album, Locked Down, produced by Dan Auerbach. They are featured in the Wall Street Journal, which says the "incendiary new album ... both harks back to [Dr. John]'s past and breaks new musical ground." Locked Down earns four stars from the Independent and the Times of London, which says Auerbach "has brought out the best in a true American original." The Guardian gives a perfect five stars to this "inspired" album: "[N]o one makes music like this: the Night Tripper rampages inimitably through swamp blues, voodoo funk and Afrobeat, with his trademark piano ... Terrific stuff."

Dr. John can be heard across the BBC this week, on the BBC Radio 4's Front Row and the BBC World Service's The Strand; his new album, Locked Down, is the BBC 6 Music Album of the Day. It's Album of the Month in Uncut, earning a nine out of ten. "Hugely successful," the magazine exclaims. "Weird, powerful rock ‘n’ roll ... enormously funky." Rolling Stone, MOJO, and the NY Daily News all give Locked Down four stars: "Full of muscled, vintage R&B grooves, fevered soloing, psychedelic arrangements and oracular mumbo jumbo," says Rolling Stone, "it's the wildest record he's made in many years." The Daily News calls it "one of the smokiest, funkiest, sexiest works of the legend’s career." MOJO says: "Dr. John teams up with Dan Auerbach and the gumbo is bubbling once again ... This is definitely right place, right time."