World Cafe

Richard Thompson and Loudon Wainwright III have each assembled remarkable careers, full of top-notch albums and influential music that spans at least 40 years. In the five decades that Thompson has been making music, he's earned some of the highest possible praise for his work as a live performer, guitarist, singer and songwriter.

Holding a title as one of the best guitarists in Nashville has to mean that you've achieved something akin to legendary status in the music world — and that's exactly what Buddy Miller has done. Born in '50s Ohio, the singer-songwriter took the stage for the first time in the '60s as an upright bassist in high-school combos.

The People's Key is the seventh full-length from Omaha's Conor Oberst and is by far the most adventurous of his career. The album comes after Oberst's Bright Eyes "hiatus," which saw him collaborate with the Mystic Valley Band and the group, Monsters of Folk that featured M.

Coming together to first play together in front of a live audience at last year's SXSW, the trio Middle Brother — composed of John J. McCauley III of Deertick, Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes and Matt Vasquez of Delta Spirit — has just released its eponymous debut.

Denver couple Patrick Riley and Alaina Moore sold most of their possessions, bought a sailboat and spent much of the next year traversing the Atlantic Ocean. Though their story sounds as though it was plucked from one of our winter fantasies, the husband-and-wife duo had been carefully planning the voyage ever since they met in college. But what they didn't foresee was that the trip would rekindle their love of music and fuel their careers in the indie-rock band Tennis.