Gordon Lightfoot Book, Music and More!

No longer the “hick from Mount Uniacke” in Nova Scotia, Buck 65 is now Canada’s avant-garde maestro. The rapper-MC-turntablist shifted away from his down-home rap with 2005’s Secret House Against the World, which incorporated jazz, trip-hop and French into his abstract mix. Here, drawing on the cultural ephemera of the Frisbee, the Beat Generation, China’s Great Leap Forward, Elvis Presley and Situationist International, he delivers an inspired hip-hop concept album dedicated to the year 1957. Oct. 30

They make a supremely odd couple: the grizzled old rock god and the impossibly sweet bluegrass diva. Despite their differences—or because of them—Plant and Krauss forge a real chemistry on this collection of modal blues and country soul. The Zeppelin vocalist has never sounded so restrained, perhaps to allow Krauss’ exquisite harmonies to shine through on songs by Little Milton Campbell, The Everly Brothers, Townes Van Zandt and Tom Waits. Credit producer T-Bone Burnett for masterminding the magic. Oct. 23

The album title is a play on Neil Young’s song “Are You Ready for the Country,” which is appropriate given that The Diableros’ music seems at least partly inspired by the spirit of Crazy Horse, with plenty of raging solos on songs like “Turning Backwards” and “Kicking Rocks.” Singer Pete Carmichael even affects the Flannel Shirted One’s signature falsetto whine on “Left from the Movies.” And when his Toronto band pays tribute to its hometown on “Nothing Down in Hogtown,” it’s yet another nod to Neil. Oct. 16