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As spring takes full effect, an exciting new batch of albums have added even more color to May this New Music Friday.

Kali Uchis is back with her deeply personal new record Sincerely, while Sleep Token have returned with their fourth album Even in Arcadia. Additionally, UK punks mclusky share their first new album in 21 years, and Thom Yorke and Mark Pritchard have revealed their collaborative effort Tall Tales.

Check out our list of the best new albums to stream this New Music Friday.

Editor’s Note: Enjoy these albums and more on Amazon Music Unlimited, which is currently offering a free three-month trial. Learn more here.

billy woods — Golliwog

Influenced by the legacy of Mf Doom, Toni Morrison, and the dystopian worlds of Ray Bradbury, billy woods’ Golliwog unfolds a dense narrative that collides Afropessimism, surrealism, and horror. The New York rapper shared three singles ahead of the release,...

It’s a little more than a decade since Benmont Tench released his debut solo LP, You Should Be So Lucky, but for the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers keyboardist, it feels like a lifetime ago. There’s been a lot of joy in the intervening years, most notably his 2015 marriage to Alice Carbone Tench, and the birth of their daughter, Catherine. But he also endured the sudden death of Petty just seven days after the conclusion of their 2017 tour, and a recent battle with oral cancer.

Along the way,...

I’m With Her — the folk supergroup of Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O’Donovan, and Sara Watkins — have announced their new album, Wild and Clear and Blue, along with a 2025 North American tour. It’s out in full on May 9th via Rounder Records, and you can stream the first single “Ancient Light” below.

Recorded in New York state between The Outlier Inn in the Catskills and The Clubhouse in Rhinebeck, the trio’s sophomore album was produced by Bonny Light Horseman member Josh Kaufman and mixed by D. James Goodwin. Pre-orders for vinyl and CD copies are ongoing.

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In a press statement, O’Donovan said they wrote Wild and Clear and Blue while “thinking about growing up so in love with music and then actually making music ourselves — it’s very specific to our own lives, but I think there’s something universal about having...

Benmont Tench, keyboardist for Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, has announced The Melancholy Season, his first new solo album in over a decade. Along with the announcement, he has unveiled the title track and 2025 tour dates.

Produced by Jonathan Wilson, The Melancholy Season will arrive on March 7th via Dark Horse Records. It features 13 songs with contributions from Dawes’ Taylor Goldsmith, Nickel Creek’s Sara Watkins, and singer-songwriter Jenny O. It will be his first full-length release since his 2014 solo debut, You Should Be So Lucky. Pre-orders are ongoing.

Ahead of the arrival of The Melancholy Season, Tench will preview the songs at his upcoming residency in New York at the Café Carlyle slated for February 18th through 22nd. After that, he’ll hit the road for a handful of West Coast tour dates, stopping in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and other cities. Check out the full list of his upcoming shows below,...

Beyoncé’s new album, Cowboy Carter, is out in the wild. In a press release, Beyoncé provided extensive insight into the making of the album and its variety of influences. Plus, read our review the album here.

Each Song Was Inspired by a Western Film

Notably, each song is its own version of a reimagined Western film, including Michael Matthews’ Five Fingers For Marseilles; James Bridges’ Urban Cowboy; Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight; Clint Eastwood’s Space Cowboys; Jeymes Samuel’s The Harder They Fall; and Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon. Often times, they films were playing on a screen during the recording process.

Additionally, some aspects of the album’s percussion were inspired by the Coen Brothers’ ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou?.

Beyoncé also found inspiration in traditional country, R&b, blues, zydeco, and Black folk music, as well as from her childhood trips to the Houston Rodeo.

Acoustic trio Nickel Creek have reunited to announce a new album and release their first new music in nine years. Celebrants, the follow-up to Chris Thile, Sean Watkins, and Sara Watkins’ 2014 release A Dotted Line, will arrive March 24.

The album’s first single is “Strangers,” which revolves around a swift finger-style guitar part and lead vocal from Sean Watkins. The lyrics describe the awkwardness of meeting a long-lost friend after some time. “It’s been too long, stranger/Guess even hard times fly/And leave us speechless in the darkness,...

[This post originally appeared as part of Recommendation Machine, IndieWire’s daily TV picks feature.]

Where to Watch ‘The Fungies!’: HBO Max

It’s not easy to describe what exactly the Fungies are. The theme song for the animated HBO Max Original presents them as “prehistoric fungi,” though de facto main character Seth (voiced by Harry Teitelman) is basically shaded like a tomato and the inhabitants of bustling Fungietown live in giant mushroom buildings, so everything in this world follows a kind of internal children’s-show logic. Whatever adjectives you choose to use, that character design serves as the first and main draw of “The Fungies!”

Most of the creatures of “The Fungies!” function somewhere between Potato Head, putty, and whatever’s in a lava lamp. Normal day-to-day life involves detaching and rearranging limbs, getting smushed together as component parts of giant innovative apparatuses, and in the case of Seth’s siblings The Twins, existing as modular halves of a single whole.

In the early days of the pandemic, just as it was becoming clear that the Killers’ 2020 tour wasn’t going to happen, Brandon Flowers found that his mind kept drifting back his formative years in the tiny, remote Utah town of Nephi. “There was a nostalgic longing in the air and a little bit of sadness,” the singer says. “I started thinking about where I was in the Nineties, and these stories just sort of blossomed out.”

Those stories form the basis of the upcoming Killers record Pressure Machine, due out August 13th.

R&b superstars Bruno Mars and Anderson Paak have joined forces to form a duo called Silk Sonic. The single “Leave The Door Open,” off their album “An Evening with Silk Sonic,” has so far been tremendously popular, recently topping the Billboard Hot 100. But while their continued commercial success seems all but certain, one question does remain: what are their Grammy chances? Let’s look at some past supergroups to see how the recording academy has reacted to them and what that might mean for this new dynamic duo.

The Highwomen

This critically acclaimed all-female supergroup consists of Grammy winners Maren Morris, Brandi Carlile, Amanda Shires, and Natalie Hemby. The country and Americana quartet released their debut album in late 2019 to great reviews. As for the Grammys, they surprisingly only got one nom for Best Country Song for “Crowded Table,” which they eventually won against bigger hits like Miranda Lambert...

Jim James, Andrew Bird, Grace Potter, Lucius, the Decemberists, Warren Haynes, Punch Brothers’ Chris Thile, Julien Baker and Benmont Tench all collaborated on a remote cover version of Burt Bacharach’s “What the World Needs Now Is Love” as part of the Newport Folk Festival’s virtual festival.

The performance, music-directed by the Decemberists’ Chris Funk, features home-recorded performances sewn into a massive web of sound. The collaborators also include Hiss Golden Messenger, Yola, Glen Hansard, Valerie June, Ruby Amanfu, Phil Cook, Sara Watkins and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band,...

Jason Isbell, Brandi Carlile, Eric Church, Kacey Musgraves, and Bill Murray will remember the life and music of John Prine during an all-star online special on Thursday. Picture Show: A Tribute Celebrating John Prine streams June 11th at 7:30 p.m. Et via Prine’s YouTube, Facebook, and Twitch.

Prine’s family, including his widow Fiona Whelan Prine, and his Oh Boy Records label produced the tribute, which assembles musical performances, first-person accounts of those who knew Prine, and unseen footage of the songwriter, who died in April after contracting Covid-19.

Along with Isbell,...

Sarah Jarosz, who earlier this year won a Grammy for her work with Sara Watkins and Aoife O’Donovan in the trio I’m With Her, returns with her first solo album in four years, World on the Ground, on June 5th. Produced by John Leventhal (Rosanne Cash, Elvis Costello) and recorded in his Manhattan home studio, the Rounder Records LP is Jarosz’s solo follow-up to her Grammy-winning 2016 release Undercurrent.

Ahead of the album’s release, Jarosz offers an advance listen with the timely and tantalizing “Johnny,” which finds the title...

Winners in the country music, Americana/roots, and bluegrass categories were announced during the Grammy Awards Premiere Ceremony on Sunday afternoon.

Tanya Tucker won two awards, Best Country Album for While I’m Livin’ and Best Country Song for “Bring My Flowers Now.”

“After almost 50 years in this business, after many dreams, it’s still unbelievable to me that I’d still have a few firsts left. After 14 trips, 14 nominations, this is the first win,” Tucker said upon accepting the trophy for Best Country Song, which she shared with her co-writers Phil and Tim Hanseroth,...

The Grammy Awards, now in their 62nd year, once again take place at L.A.’s Staples Center. For the 2020 ceremony, 15-time winner Alicia Keys returns as host for a second consecutive year. Performers include Billie Eilish, Lizzo, Lil Nas X, Ariana Grande, Jonas Brothers, MusiCares Person of the Year Aerosmith, Camila Cabello, Bts, H.E.R., Brandi Carlile, Gary Clark Jr. and more.

Here’s a rundown of all the Grammy winners. Rolling Stone will be updating this list as awards come in.

Rap Album: Igor, Tyler, The Creator

Comedy Album: Sticks & Stones,...

The Grammys are tonight, but there are too many awards to hand out in one primetime telecast, especially with so many performances scheduled for the event. Most of the awards were handed out during the Premiere Ceremony in the afternoon. So who took home prizes, and what does it mean for the evening’s telecast? Find out below in our live blog with winners and analysis throughout the show. And follow along with the complete list of winners here.

Two-time Grammy winner Imogen Heap hosted the pre-ceremony, which took place from 12:30pm-3:30pm Pacific Time (3:30pm-6:30pm Eastern) and were streamed live around the world on Grammy.com.

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Heap was a nominee herself this year: Best Musical Theater Album for “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.” And so were the performers slated for the pre-show: Classical violinist Nicola Benedetti,...

The 62nd Annual Grammy Awards telecast will take place on Sunday night, January 26, but there are way too many awards to hand out in one primetime telecast, especially with so many performances filling up that airtime. The lion’s share of awards will actually be handed out during the Premiere Ceremony earlier that day. So what can you expect from that event, and how can you watch them?

Two-time Grammy winner Imogen Heap will host the pre-broadcast ceremony, which will take place from 12:30pm-3:30pm Pacific Time (3:30pm-6:30pm Eastern). And you can stream it live from around the world by visiting Grammy.com.

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Heap is a nominee herself this year: Best Musical Theater Album for “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.” And so are the performers currently slated for the pre-show. Classical violinist Nicola Benedetti,...

Sara Bareilles is back at the Grammys with the eighth nomination of her career, but it’s the first in the Americana field, where she’s up for Best American Roots Performance for “Saint Honesty,” a song she co-wrote with Grammy-winning country songwriter Lori McKenna. Will the change of scenery finally win her her first Grammy 11 years after she broke through at these awards?

Bareilles first made the cut in 2009 when she was a newcomer nominated for Song of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for her breakthrough hit “Love Song.” Then came two more pop performance nominations for “King of Anything” (2011) and “Brave” (2014), plus a surprise Album of the Year nom for “The Blessed Unrest” (2014).

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After that she took a detour to Broadway by writing the score for “Waitress,” which earned her a Best Musical Theater album...

Austin City Limits presents an all-star Americana special this weekend, with more than a dozen performances and other highlights from this year’s Americana Honors & Awards ceremony.

Premiering Saturday on PBS, the hour-long episode was taped at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium in September and includes a performance by Album of the Year winner John Prine, who sings his “Angel From Montgomery” with the artist who brought the song wider recognition, Bonnie Raitt.

“I’ve been singing it since 1973 or so, when I first started to tour with John,” Bonnie Raitt...

Nominees for the 62nd Grammy Awards were announced Wednesday morning, with Tanya Tucker leading among country performers and Eric Church, Ashley McBryde, and Dan + Shay all picking up multiple nominations in the country categories.

Tucker’s 2019 album While I’m Livin’ was a big favorite for voters, earning the singer a Best Country Album nomination. The album’s centerpiece, “Bring My Flowers Now,” found its way into multiple fields, including Best Country Solo Performance and Best Country Song, a nomination Tucker shares with her co-writers Brandi Carlile, Tim Hanseroth,...

Brandi Carlile and John Prine hauled in a few of the top prizes at the 2019 Americana Honors & Awards, held Wednesday night in Nashville. Carlile was named Artist of the Year, a victory lap for the success she had with 2018’s By the Way, I Forgive You as well as an acknowledgement of the inspired work she’s put out in 2019, including the Highwomen and co-producing Tanya Tucker’s While I’m Livin’.

Prine, who was named Artist of the Year at the 2018 Americana Honors, picked up the Album of the...

Ringo Starr has shared highlights and behind-the-scenes footage from his 11th annual “Peace and Love” birthday celebration event at the Capitol Records Tower in Los Angeles this weekend.

As Starr explains during an interview in the clip, the “Peace and Love” celebration started in 2008 and came about after a journalist asked Starr what he wanted for his birthday. He replied,, “I’d like everyone on the planet to go, ‘Peace and love’ on my birthday.” The event has since become an annual July 7th tradition, and now fans in over...

On July 7th, 2008, Ringo Starr invited fans to join him on the streets on Los Angeles to celebrate his birthday with a simple direction: Say the words “peace and love” when the clock hit noon. He’s been doing it ever since, and the gathering has spread to more than 20 countries around the world and on social media, to “create a wave of Peace & Love across the planet.”

Starr will return to the Capitol Records Tower in L.A. on his birthday this year for an event that will also...

Aaron Watson previews his new album Red Bandana with the lively “Kiss That Girl Goodbye,” folk supergroup I’m With Her return with “Call My Name” and Kassi Ashton brushes off an ex in this week’s list of must-hear songs.

Haley & Michaels, “Taking Off”

Released four years after Shannon Haley and Ryan Michaels’ wedding, this hot-to-trot single finds the country duo returning to honeymoon levels of passion. Both singers take their own verses before harmonizing together during the chorus, whose rapid-fire rhythm mirrors the rush of a steamy make-out session.

Bluegrass titan and longtime Grand Ole Opry member Del McCoury, who turns 80 years old next month, will be celebrated with a special Opry tribute featuring fellow musicians Sam Bush, Vince Gill, Ricky Skaggs, Marty Stuart and the Travelin’ McCourys.

Set for February 13th, the Wednesday night event, dubbed “Grand Del Opry,” will feature McCoury and his award-winning band as well additional performers to be announced in the coming weeks.

McCoury, who turns 80 on February 1st, played the Opry for the first time in 1963 as a member of Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys.

The initial lineup has been revealed for 2019’s DelFest, the eclectic Memorial Day weekend music event celebrating the legacy and continuing influence of bluegrass entertainer Del McCoury. In addition to the Del McCoury Band and the Travelin’ McCourys, which features the legendary performer’s sons, Ronnie and Rob, DelFest will include String Cheese Incident, Trampled by Turtles, Railroad Earth, Marcus King Band, Billy Strings, Sierra Hull, the Gibson Brothers, and the supergroup of Sara Watkins, Sarah Jarosz and Aoife O’Donovan, I’m With Her. More artists will be announced soon.

“I’m not even sure this band would exist without covers,” says Aoife O’Donovan, who plays guitar in the trio I’m With Her. The folk-supergroup consists of O’Donovan plus Sarah Jarosz (banjo, mandolin) and Sara Watkins (fiddle). All three of them sing, like a modern — and perhaps softer — version of Trio, Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt’s brief Eighties supergroup. Like their forbears, I’m With Her bonded over other people’s songs. One they all loved was “Hannah Hunt.”

The Vampire Weekend album was...

Pickathon celebrated its 20th anniversary this past weekend. To put this in sharp perspective, Portland, Oregon’s four-day musical shindig has been around longer than either Bonnaroo or Coachella, the two standard-bearers in American music festivals. But despite its age, Pickathon doesn’t attract the same kind of attention as its peers — and that’s by design. Tucked away on a farm nestled in the woods of the Pacific Northwest, it’s a hard-to-find festival, with some stages requiring literal hikes to access. But its ruggedness is part of the charm,...

When Carlos Rafael Rivera was an aspiring film composer and Scott Frank’s guitar teacher in 2005, the writer-director shared the Western script he was working on as a feature, and they discussed the score. “He read me a very dark scene with this evil Frank Griffin reading by the fireside, and we discussed the moment being built around C major,” he said. “And that was it.”

Later, after Rivera scored Frank’s 2014 feature “A Walk Among the Tombstones,” Rivera prepared to score that feature in the form of a seven-part Netflix mini-series, “Godless” — and decided the best score for the scene was none at all. “When that scene came up, and I was actually writing to picture, I wrote this music that had a Bernard Herrmann influence,” he said. “We ended up using no music because the performance was so good by Jeff Daniels.”

The length and scope of “Godless...

When Sara Watkins, Sarah Jarosz and Aoife O’Donovan assembled to form an Americana all-star trio a few years ago, the name “Monsters of Folk” had already been claimed by an all-male supergroup. “Monsters of NPR” doesn’t really have the right ring to it, and avoiding “I’m With Keillor” proved to be wise, even though all three women were strongly associated with “Prairie Home Companion” and are now staples of its successor, “Live From Here.” They settled on I’m With Her, which was not without liability as a moniker, as the phrase was soon thereafter pilfered as a political mantra. That vague association is okay — I’m With Her’s show Monday at Los Angeles’ Teregram Ballroom did feel a bit like a rally, in favor of stunning female harmony singing and virtuosity.

Watkins wryly noted early in the show that the trio’s first album, “See You Around,...

Maybe Hiss Golden Messenger said it best, in a tweet after Friday night’s tribute to Jerry Garcia at downtown Los Angeles’ Theatre at Ace Hotel (at which lead singer Mc Taylor was one of the performers): “Seeing Stephen Malkmus, Benmont Tench and David Hidalgo onstage together creates a hugely enjoyable cognitive dissonance.” In this particular Dead-related case, “cognitive dissonance” was not even intended as a synonym for tripping, but just the fun of seeing celebrity fans from different disciplines focus attention on some of Garcia’s under-celebrated sides. At the end of the three-hour show, you could even say: What a long trip of strange bedfellows it’s been.

The guest singers might have been the ones with their names on the souvenir poster, but the highlight of the night, for many, was a semi-reunion of Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers or Mudcrutch, take your pick), with Tench, the...

Saturday night was a perfect summer evening for free Americana music at Lincoln's Center Damrosch Park as part of the Annual Roots of American Music, Americanafest NYC. The evening featured two of the genres rising stars. The headliners played two sets with the first half of the set featuring mostly original tunes by former Nickel Creek members Sean and Sara Watkin's new band The Watkins Family Hour. They and their extraordinary band entertained a robust crowd of New Yorkers and tourists alike. One of my favorite songs of the evening was their beatiful take on the Grateful Dead's "Brokedown Palace." And co-vocalist Fionna Apple's original song "A Mistake" was quite moving. Yes, she's one of the members of this band.

The second part of the set was a full-on tribute to Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited performed in its entirety by the band -- guitarist/vocalist Sean Watkins, fiddle/vocalist Sara Watkins,...

It was an incredible night at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards with amazing performances from Beyonce Knowles and Ed Sheeran, along with Katy Perry, Madonna and Pharrell Williams, just to name a few.

Hosted by the uber-talented LL Cool J, there were a plethora of winners this evening (February 8) with Sam Smith leading the way by taking home four trophies in categories including Best New Artist, Record of the Year and Song of the Year.

Meanwhile, Beck scored the other big prize of the night with Album of the Year accolades for Morning Phase. In addition, the long-tenured musician won Rock Album of the Year honors.

The energy-filled night saw in a host of famous presenters such as Taylor Swift, Anna Kendrick, Keith Urban and Prince, with some of the other twenty-three performances including Lady Gaga paired with Tony Bennett, Adam Levine teamed up with Gwen Stefani, and Rihanna, Paul McCartney...

Complete list of winners and nominees of the 2014 Grammy Awards, held in Los Angeles at the Staples Center on Sunday February 8. Winners will be updated as they're announced during the telecast and pre-telecast. Record Of The Year “Fancy,” Iggy Azalea Featuring Charli Xcx “Chandelier,” Sia **Winner** “Stay With Me (Darkchild Version),” Sam Smith “Shake It Off,” Taylor Swift “All About That Bass,” Meghan Trainor Album Of The Year **Winner** “Morning Phase,” Beck “Beyoncé,” Beyoncé “X,” Ed Sheeran “In The Lonely Hour,” Sam Smith “Girl,” Pharrell Williams Song Of The Year “All About That Bass,” Kevin Kadish & Meghan Trainor, songwriters (Meghan Trainor) “Chandelier,” Sia Furler & Jesse Shatkin, songwriters (Sia) “Shake It Off,” Max Martin, Shellback & Taylor Swift, songwriters (Taylor Swift) **Winner** “Stay With Me (Darkchild Version),” James Napier, William Phillips & Sam Smith, songwriters (Sam Smith) “Take Me To Church,” Andrew Hozier-Byrne, songwriter (Hozier) Best New Artist Iggy Azalea Bastille Brandy Clark...

Below is a list of the nominees and nominations for the 57th annual Grammy Awards, to be held Feb. 8, 2015 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. The main show will be broadcast on CBS 8 p.m.-11:30 p.m. Est/Pst and present 10-13 awards from major categories. The Grammy Awards Premiere Ceremony (previously dubbed the Pre-Telecast Ceremony) will take place in the Nokia Centre from 12:30-3:30 Pst and will be live-streamed via Grammy.com. Beyonce and Sam Smith lead overall nominations, with six a piece; each have an Album of the Year nod. Album Of The Year Sam Smith, "In the Lonely Hour" Beyonce, "Beyonce" Beck, "Morning Phase" Ed Sheeran, "x" Pharrell Williams, "Girl" Record Of The Year Iggy Azalea, "Fancy" featuring Charli Xcx Sia, "Chandelier" Sam Smith, "Stay With Me" Taylor Swift, "Shake It Off" Meghan Trainor, "All About That Bass" Song of the Year Sia,...

Chicago (AP) — Jeff Tweedy, Nickel Creek, Emmylou Harris and Janelle Monae will headline this year's Taste of Chicago. Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events on Monday released the list of performers for the annual food festival in Grant Park along Lake Michigan. Other performers include Gary Clark Jr., Parker Millsap, Aloe Blacc, the Wailers and Awolnation. The Taste of Chicago runs from July 9 to 13. Admission to the festival is free. Tickets for the seating area at the Petrillo Music Shell will go on sale May 22. Seating on the lawn is free for musical performances. Copyright © 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

The soundtrack to Disney's "Frozen" holds on to the No. 1 slot on the Billboard 200 for yet another week. In its ninth nonconsecutive week on the chart, the album sold 149,000 copies (-8%), according to Nielsen SoundScan. The total sales for “Frozen" have now hit 1.9 million. If "Frozen" nabs the top spot next week, it will tie Disney's "The Lion King" for the longest run at No. 1 by an animated film soundtrack. "The Lion King" spent 10 nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 in 1994 and 1995. Nipping at the heels of "Frozen" is the new Ep by Australian pop/rock band 5 Seconds of Summer. "She Looks So Perfect” enters at No. 2 with 143,000 copies. 5 Seconds of Summer gained a fanbase by opening for One Direction. The bands will tour again starting May 23, hitting arenas in Europe, the U.S. and Canada. Chevelle’s "La Gargola" debuts at No. 3 with 45,000. It's the rock outfit’s highest-charting album to date,...

It’s a big week next week for debuts on The Billboard 200 with at least five new titles bowing in the Top 10. The big race is between the soundtrack to “Frozen,” which is vying for its 9th week at No. 1, but is facing a big challenge from boy band 5 Seconds of Summer and its Ep, “She Looks So Perfect.” Hits Daily Double says the two are too close to call, with “Frozen slated to sell between 140,000-150,000 and “Perfect” between 135,000 and 145,000. The contenders for No. 3 and 4 are also close, but 100,000 copies separate them from the No. 1 and No. 2 slots. Chevelle’s “La Gargola” and Christina Perri’s “Head Or Heart” are both expected to move around 40,000 units each. Coming in at No. 5 will likely be country duo Dan + Shay’s “Where It All Began” (read our interview with the pair here). Shakira’s “Shakira” falls to No. 6 (30,000), Johnny Cash’s...

Louisville, Kentucky’s flagship Forecastle Festival has announced its lineup, which includes Outkast, Beck and Jack White as headliners. Check out the full lineup below. In its 12th year, the three-day festival returns to Waterfront Park and runs July 18-20. The festival has also secured the sought-after Replacements reunion, which so far will only appear at Coachella and Shaky Knees. Ray Lamontagne, Band of Horses, Spoon, Against Me!, Local Natives, Gary Clark Jr. and Jenny Lewis are also on the lineup. Tickets go on sale Friday (March 7). Here’s the complete Forecastle 2014 lineup: Jack White Beck The Replacements Ray Lamontagne Band of Horses Spoon Nickel Creek Dwight Yoakam Twenty One Pilots Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings Local Natives Gary Clark Jr. Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit Jenny Lewis Trampled By Turtles Lord Huron Tune-Yards Jj Grey & Mofro Action Bronson Slint Flume Against Me! Sun Kil Moon Sharon Van Etten The Black Lips St.

The key to any voyage into the twangy depths of this weekend's Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival is planning.

San Francisco's annual free celebration of bluegrass (and also not bluegrass) in Golden Gate Park, now in its 12th consecutive year, has gotten so popular that shuttling between stages to see all of your favorite bands can prove virtually impossible. Instead, the best idea is often just to get there early, pick a spot near the stage you're most interested in and stay there for the long haul.

(Scroll Down For Playlist And Lineup)

While the lineup was announced months ago, the actual full schedule, complete with set times, was only released recently. Essential planning's gotta all be done Right This Very Second.

Our top recommendations are Ben Kweller, Buddy Miller, Robert Earl Keen, The Dirty Three, the Heartless Bastards, Son Volt and Les Claypool's Duo De Twang. If you're curious as to why this is exciting,...

At 31, Chris Thile is special in an already special circle: the mandolinist who first won big in the Grammy-winning trio Nickel Creek is this year’s youngest MacArthur genius. The annual grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation includes $500,000 for each fellowship recipient to spend as genius wants -- no small change when you're not yet a decade out of college.

In the face of such a high-stakes tradition, it might be tempting to try to adopt sang froid. But Thile isn't shy about his nonstop grinning. Sitting next to Junot Diaz and across from Charlie Rose this week, Thile beamed and ran overtime with every one of his exuberantly gestured thoughts, while Diaz, the 43-year-old writer of the moment who also made this year's cut, spoke in flawless metaphors and kept still. More than equals, they resembled the Karate Kid and Mr. Miyagi.

Thile might extend...

June 3: Game-show host Chuck Barris ("The Gong Show") is 83. Singer Ian Hunter is 73. Singer Eddie Holman is 66. Bassist Too Slim of Riders in the Sky is 64. Singer Suzi Quatro is 62. Singer Deniece Williams is 61. Singer Dan Hill is 58. Actor Scott Valentine ("Family Ties") is 54. Guitarist Kerry King of Slayer is 48. Singer Mike Gordon of Phish is 47. Newsman Anderson Cooper is 45. Country singer Jamie O'Neal is 44. Singers Ariel and Gabriel Hernandez of No Mercy are 41. Actor Vik Sahay ("Chuck") is 41. Actress Lalaine Dupree ("Lizzie McGuire") is 25.

June 4: Actor Bruce Dern is 76. Singer-actress Michelle Phillips (The Mamas and The Papas) is 68. Bassist Danny Brown of The Fixx is 61. Actor Parker Stevenson is 60. Singer El DeBarge is 51. Singer Al B. Sure! is 44. Actor Scott Wolf ("Party of Five") is 44. Ron Huebel ("What to Expect When You're Expecting") is 43. Comedian Horatio Sanz ("Saturday Night Live") is 43. Actor Noah Wyle ("ER") is 41. Bassist...

Almost every country in the world has a television talent competition, but very few of them have delivered a new voice that transcends geography. Until now. Introducing Yatharth Ratnum, a young singer from India who competed on the 2009 edition of L’il Champs. The show was seen in 162 countries and voters from all over the globe voted Yatharth the first runner up. His mature yet gregarious personality, polished look and bold determination, meshed with remarkable range and vocal ability, has earned Yatharth the opportunity to share his musical vision with listeners everywhere as he prepares to release his first record, Yatharth, on May 22, 2012.

Each of the songs represents facets of Yatharth’s life and interest in different genres of music. “I Love You” is Yatharth’s first written and composed song, inspired by his first love. It is infused with sweet romanticism, whereas “Tonight” is a full-on party song. “Here...

Bonnaroo has a finalized daily schedule for its 2012 festival, and has added some notable acts like Gza and Sharon Jones to the completed bill. Jones will be joined by the Dap-Kings, while Gza will be performing "Liquid Swords" in its entirety with backing band Grupo Fantasma. Metal group Pelican, recent HitFix interview Sara Watkins, the Infamous String Dusters, Unchained "The Mighty Van Halen Tribute" band and the Dirty Guv'Nahs have also been added to the lineup. The four-day festival will feature Radiohead on Friday night, Red Hot Chili Peppers on Saturday and Phish on Sunday (for four hours, no less)....

If Levon Helm's passing put you in an Americana mood, but you’re not sure younger generations have as much to bring to roots-based music as their elders, proceed directly to the superb sophomore effort by Sara Watkins. Not that “Sun Midnight Sun” will only be a balm to suffering Band fans; it might be the finest album of the year so far in any genre. Who knew the breakup of Nickel Creek would turn out to be such a boon? The separation of that young bluegrass-pop trio has led to an...

You can’t talk about Sara Watkins without dropping some big names. The former Nickel Creek member produced her first, self-titled 2009 album with Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones. She’s spent the years between now and then as a touring fiddler and backing singer for the Decemberists, as performer and occasional guest host for “Prairie Home Companion” and continuing the foundations of the Watkins Family Hour at L.A. mainstay Largo with her brother and Nickel Creek cohort Sean. “I’ve gotten some nice invitations, and I said yes to them,” Watkins said in our recent interview. This time, for her new solo album...

Record Store Day is our favorite unofficial holiday on HuffPost Culture because, a.) it gives us new music from across the spectrum all on one, glorious day, and b.) turns commercialism into a community-driven gesture. Nice, isn't? Last year, the day raised sales for record stores by 8 percent, while sales for vinyl overall grew 39 percent in 2011. The new vinyl out this year ranges from David Bowie and Paul McCartney to Katy Perry and Sigur Ros -- some have never-released before, some are recent live recordings and others are just good old vinyl versions of existing albums. We've compiled a Spotify playlist of some of our favorite releases to come out of Record Store Day, and also listed the records not on Spotify we're looking forward to getting our hands on. Take a spin below, and let us know what you're looking forward to buying in the comments.

The Top 10 We're Looking Forward To:

St. Vincent,...

Vermont singer/songwriter Anaïs Mitchell released her fifth full-length album, Young Man in America a couple months ago via Wilderland Records/Thirty Tigers. Her newest single, “Dying Day” continues in the epic storytelling tradition she established with 2010’s folk-operatic retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice story in Hadestown. The brooding track also features the mandolin work of Nickel Creek/Punch Brothers frontman Chris Thile, whose harmonies and riffs add a rich musical contrast to Mitchell’s vocals and lyrics.

The 21st century folk scare is now in full swing, and if you like your acoustic music rough, there’s no better place to get it that way than via Punch Brothers, the bluegrass band for people who hate bluegrass. The title of the group’s terrific third album, “Who’s Feeling Young Now?,” probably isn’t intended to make a statement about string-band music's staidness-vs.-vitality dynamics. But it does anyway. Led by ex-Nickel Creek member Chris Thile, the band continues to rock in a big way, without ever seeming like they’re trying too hard to...

Track is from White's first solo album, Blunderbuss, due April 24.

By James Montgomery

Jack White

Photo: WireImage

Jack White hasn't exactly been living life outside the public eye since announcing the end of the White Stripes last year, making records with everyone from Tom Jones to the Insane Clown Posse and appearing on a (really pretty excellent) episode of "American Pickers," to name just a few of his endeavors.

And on April 24, he'll officially add "solo artist" to that résumé, with the release of Blunderbuss, the first album to bear his name — and his name only. And while we suppose the move was inevitable, according to White, he never really had any plans to go solo. In fact, Blunderbuss, the first album basically began life as a happy accident.

"I didn't really even think of recording under my own name for a long time," White told BBC Radio 1's Zane Lowe on Monday.

By Sean O’Connell

Hollywoodnews.com: After decades spent entertaining radio, film and television audiences, “A Prairie Home Companion” host Garrison Keillor has hinted at a retirement.

In an interview with the Aarp Bulletin, Keillor, 68, said he’ll retire when he turns 70 (in the spring of 2013), but plans to find a replacement for his wildly successful public radio variety program before he departs the airwaves.

“I’m pushing forward, and also I’m in denial. It’s an interesting time of life,” Keillor said in the interview.

He then elaborated to the AP that 70 “seems like a nice round number.”

“The reason to retire is to try to avoid embarrassment; you ought to do it before people are dropping big hints. You want to be the first to come up with the idea. You don’t want to wait until you trip and fall off the stage.”

Possible replacements include...