Today's Top Tune

Three-time Grammy winner, author, and powerhouse Lucinda Williams shows her grit on “Rock N Roll Heart.” In the last three years, Lucinda has lived through a tornado that damaged her home in Nashville, COVID lockdown, and a stroke that left her having to learn to walk again and that took away the ability to play guitar. But in 2023, Lucinda has turned 70, released her album Stories From a Rock n Roll Heart, and revealed herself in her new memoir, Don’t Tell Anybody The Secrets I Told You. You can hear the strength and power Lucinda takes from making music on “Rock N Roll Heart.” Delight in The Boss a.k.a. Bruce Springsteen and Patti Scialfa on backing vocals.

The dream pop project of New York-based artist Patrick J. Smith, best known as A Beacon School , tutors us in the dream pop realm on “KITM.”

While Clementine Creevy, a.k.a. Cherry Glazerr, puts on the finishing touches to her newest rock album, I Don’t Want You Anymore, out Sept. 29, we have a little ditty we think you’ll love.

If there is one thing Mitski could leave behind with her music, it would be love — a compelling force behind her forthcoming album, The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We. “The best thing I ever did in my life was to love people,” Mitski says. “I wish I could leave behind all the love I have, after I die, so that I can shine all this goodness, all this good love that I’ve created onto other people.” You can feel the love big time in her song “Bug Like An Angel.”

You’ll need to close your eyes and revel in this one: Washington DC native Baby Rose steps up to the mic on Morning Becomes Eclectic and slays us with her live rendition of “Stop The Bleeding,” which is yours for the taking. Check out the full performance and interview out now at kcrw.com/music .

When heartbreak hits, we’re lucky if we have a close friend to help us mend. Chilean artist Francisca Valenzuela wrote “Nada Para Ti” — Spanish for “Nothing Left for You” — to chronicle the end of a romantic relationship. She invited Mexican singer Ximena Sariñana to collaborate because Sariñana was central during her personal separation process, and emotes a thoughtful connection with her voice, arrangements, and emotion.

We can’t wait to get our hands on Wilco ’s new album, Cousin, at the end of September. Produced by Welsh artist Cate Le Bon , this recording marks the first time the band have handed the reins to a producer outside their inner circle. Le Bon expands their sound by opening up a cannon of new instruments to play, from cheap Japanese guitars to a New Wave-style drum machine. Let’s check out the first track, “Evicted” — the story of being locked out of someone’s heart.

Barely in her 20s, Laufey is Chinese-Icelandic singer, composer, and multi-instrumentalist based in LA who sounds like a lost soul from the cool jazz era. An avid Ella Fitzgerald fan, who she discovered while thumbing through her father’s record collection, Laufey bridges the past into the present on her song “From The Start,” which will be released on her forthcoming album, Bewitched.

It’s August, it’s hot, it’s muggy, and we’re all melting. Thank goodness for Mayer Hawthorne ’s carefree melody “The Pool,” a refreshing tonic to the heat written and entirely produced by the artist.

This cover comes to us from A Song For Leon: A Tribute to Leon Russell, the superstar tribute to the man known as “The Master of Space and Time,” for his storied 50 years of prolific songwriting — not to mention having produced albums for everyone from The Rolling Stones to Bob Marley. The record drops on September 8.