Concert Previews

English neo-soul singer Corinne Bailey Rae first dazzled the music world with her silky self-titled 2006 debut - a record that entered the U.K. charts in the No. 1 spot and went on to sell more than four million copies worldwide. Rae - who got her musical start singing in church and fronted an all-female indie band as a teen - understandably dropped out of sight following the 2008 drug-overdose death of her husband, the musician Jason Rae. She reemerged at the start of this year with her long-awaited follow-up album

The Sea

, which chronicles her journey from loss to hope without sounding the least bit self-pitying. While the sultry-voiced singer has said she wanted to make a record that would be a "partner" to her debut, she deliberately sought more complex sonic landscapes to pair with the deeper story lines of her newer songs. The result is impressive. For her first U.S. tour in three years, Rae, backed by a five-member band, is mixing up old and new, along with some heartfelt covers, including Hendrix's "Little Wing" and an R&B-infused version of "Que Será Será."

- Nicole Pensiero

To soul-jazz listeners, the Hammond B3 organ is as Philadelphian as Eugene Ormandy's Philadelphia Orchestra is to classical aficionados or Harry Kalas' voice to baseball fans. If it swings, gets gritty, and can be as blue as it is bright, it's a stoned-soul Philly organ groove. Charles Earland, Shirley Scott, Jimmy McGriff - we'll even let Norristown's Jimmy Smith play in our sandbox - are legends of the Philadelphia soul-jazz organ.

Then there's Trudy Pitts - one of four headliners in this week's Organ Jam. This Juilliard-schooled musician likes her tones warm and brawny without letting us forget her technical background. Philly's Joey DeFrancesco has virtuoso cred, too, but much of his powerful soulfulness and hard-bop prowess come from being a part of a family dynasty. As for the always experimental John Medeski and the sartorially splendid boogaloo king Dr. Lonnie Smith - geniuses both, even if they're from out of town. Guess we can let that slide for now.

- A.D. Amorosi

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Once upon a time, John Doe and Exene Cervenka were the married songwriting twosome that fronted X, perhaps the greatest of the first wave of Los Angeles punk bands in the late 1970s. Long since divorced, the duo have pursued solo careers and continued to perform together in the Knitters and in frequent X reunions. At the Tin Angel, the X exes will be playing separately and together, drawing on the X catalog, and pulling from Cervenka's solo album

Somewhere Gone

, and also from

Country Club

, Doe's 2009 collaboration with Canadian band The Sadies.

- Dan DeLuca