Gordon Lightfoot Book, Music and More!

Wilder is right. Britain’s folk-rockers forsake banjos in a favor of synthesized pop-rock on their third album. Working with producer James Ford (Arctic Monkeys, Florence & the Machine), Marcus Mumford and his mates aim for something closer to the National and Coldplay on stirring breakup anthems like “Tompkins Square Park” and “Ditmas.”

She may be best known for the love songs “Until It’s Time for You to Go” and “Up Where We Belong.” But Buffy Sainte-Marie has a long history of protest music, dating back to her 1964 anti-war anthem “Universal Soldier.” The Canadian-born First Nations legend pulls no punches on her new album. Covers include songs by two British bands: the title track by Alabama 3 and UB40’s “Sing Our Own Song.” Saint-Marie sings the former as a techno-laced call to arms and puts her own powwow spin on the latter, complete with a reference to the aboriginal-rights movement Idle No More. “Not the Lovin’ Kind” is a fiery reworking of her breakup song from her 1972 album Moonshot. Of her new material, stand...

Championed by Jack White, this St. Louis native draws from a deep well of early jazz, ragtime, country blues and Western swing. Timeless rather than retro, songs like the otherworldly “Goodbye, Barcelona” and Pokey’s proud Midwestern tribute “Knocking the Dust off the Rust Belt Tonight” are proof of his fresh approach.