Kin is a songwriting collaboration between Rodney Crowell and author/academic Mary Karr, responsible for 10 of the best new country songs I've heard in ages, brought to life by singers such as Emmylou Harris, Lucinda Williams and Kris Kristofferson.

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The Great Escape, Various Venues, Brighton

The Great Escape, Brighton’s answer to Texas’s South-by-Southwest festival, has grown at an alarming rate in its six-year existence.

UK museums warned over dealings with Saudi regime

Former V&A chief says contracts should be reviewed in the wake of Middle East instability

Bob Dylan and Jack White's Hank Williams tribute

Bob Dylan, Jack White and Norah Jones have recorded previously unreleased Hank Williams songs.

Album: Norah Jones...Featuring (Blue Note)

A more-than-defensible collection of Jones's collaborations over the past decade: 18 songs in the company of luminaries as diverse as Ray Charles and Belle & Sebastian, Willie Nelson and OutKast, Dolly Parton and Herbie Hancock.

Album: Charlie Haden Quartet West, Sophisticated Ladies (Emarcy)

You can't knock the sheer class of this major-label grand production matching bassist Haden's film noir-inspired quartet – one of the best groups of the past 20 years – with guest singers Cassandra Wilson, Diana Krall, Melody Gardot, Norah Jones, Renée Fleming and Ruth Cameron (Haden's wife, who co-produces).

Album: Norah Jones, Featuring Norah Jones (Blue Note)

...Featuring Norah Jones, a compilation of her duets and collaborations with other artists, is remarkable not just for the breadth of those temporary associations – which range from Herbie Hancock to Foo Fighters, OutKast to Dolly Parton – but for the way her voice holds its own in such company.

Album: Belle & Sebastian, Write About Love (Rough Trade)

B&S's eighth studio album comes after a four-and-a-half year wait, but the hiatus hasn't altered them one jot.

Album: Esperanza Spalding, Chamber Music Society (Heads Up)

She's still emulating Norah Jones more than Charles Mingus but with this third album the double bassist and singer Esperanza Spalding announces her arrival as a major star.

Norah Jones - 'I write really well on the road'

Norah Jones is looking forward to touring again, having swapped the mellow jazz of Come Away With Me for a striking break-upalbum, a new haircut and a dog. By Elisa Bray

The Barometer: Norah Jones; Let's Wrestle; Yo Gotti; Final Fantasy; Kraftwerk; Lee 'Scratch' Perry

Norah Jones That's What I Said (remix by Adrock & Mike D)

Album: Norah Jones, The Fall (Blue Note)

Parts of Norah Jones's 2007 album Not Too Late sounded rather like a scrubbed-up, housetrained Tom Waits, so it's no surprise that for this follow-up, she enlisted the services of producer Jacquire King in an attempt to obtain the "balance between beautiful and rough" that he secured for Waits's Mule Variations.

Album: Norah Jones, The Fall, (Blue Note)

Another departure in the career of this unjustly resented pop girl.

Ravi Shankar's daughter 'victim of blackmail plot'

Attempt to extort $100,000 from musician over private photos stolen from her laptop

Hip-hop offers a new message

The aggressive image hides an intelligent aspect, says Ian Burrell
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Special report: How my father's face turned up in Robert Capa's lost suitcase

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The great war photographer was not one person but two. Their pictures of Spain's civil war, lost for decades, tell a heroic tale
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Someone, somewhere has to write speeches for world leaders to deliver in the event of disaster. They offer a chilling hint at what could have been
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Funny business: Meet the women running comedy

Think comedy’s a man's world? You must be stuck in the 1980s, says Holly Williams
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Wilko Johnson: 'You have to live for the minute you're in'

The Dr Feelgood guitarist talks frankly about his terminal illness
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Entrepreneurs are giving vintage ice-cream vans a new lease of life
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True popular art drives up from the streets, but the commercial world wastes no time in cashing in
Guest List: The IoS Literary Editor suggests some books for your summer holiday

Guest List: IoS Literary Editor suggests some books for your summer holiday

Before you stuff your luggage with this year's Man Booker longlist titles, the case for some varied poolside reading alternatives
What if Edward Snowden had stayed to fight his corner?

Rupert Cornwell: What if Edward Snowden had stayed to fight his corner?

The CIA whistleblower struck a blow for us all, but his 1970s predecessor showed how to win
'A man walks into a bar': Comedian Seann Walsh on the dangers of mixing alcohol and stand-up

Comedian Seann Walsh on alcohol and stand-up

Comedy and booze go together, says Walsh. The trouble is stopping at just the one. So when do the hangovers stop being funny?
From Edinburgh to Hollywood (via the Home Counties): 10 comedic talents blowing up big

Edinburgh to Hollywood: 10 comedic talents blowing up big

Hugh Montgomery profiles the faces to watch, from the sitcom star to the surrealist
'Hello. I have cancer': When comedian Tig Notaro discovered she had a tumour she decided the show must go on

Comedian Tig Notaro: 'Hello. I have cancer'

When Notaro discovered she had a tumour she decided the show must go on
They think it's all ova: Bill Granger's Asia-influenced egg recipes

Bill Granger's Asia-influenced egg recipes

Our chef made his name cooking eggs, but he’s never stopped looking for new ways to serve them
The world wakes up to golf's female big hitters

The world wakes up to golf's female big hitters

With its own Tiger Woods - South Korea's Inbee Park - the women's game has a growing audience
10 athletes ready to take the world by storm in Moscow next week

10 athletes ready to take the world by storm in Moscow next week

Here are the potential stars of the World Championships which begin on Saturday
The Last Word: Luis Suarez and Gareth Bale's art of manipulation

The Last Word: Luis Suarez and Gareth Bale's art of manipulation

Briefings are off the record leading to transfer speculation which is merely a means to an end