Bettye Lavette

In a concert last month at Hollywood's Hotel Cafe, the buzzy English singer Paloma Faith crouched down near the floor to sing "Let Me Down Easy. " It's a tough-love song associated with a number of hardy soul-music veterans, including Bettye LaVette and the late Etta James, and Faith was doing what she could (despite her youth and a seriously movement-constricting dress) to channel some of their gravitas. LaVette does some crouching of her own on "Thankful N' Thoughtful," a powerful new covers album that finds the 66-year-old R&B singer tapping into the desperation of tunes like Neil Young's "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere" and "Everything Is Broken" by Bob Dylan.

For its 2013-14 season, the Broad Stage in Santa Monica will present appearances by actress Patti LuPone, opera singer Bryn Terfel, violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg and the Los Angeles dance group Bodytraffic. Members of the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela will also perform in a concert during the coming season, which the Broad announced Monday.  Leaders at the Broad also announced a new initiative designed to bolster the company's jazz offerings. A new Jazz Council, which will curate performances and events, will consist of Quincy Jones, Herb Alpert, Ruth Price, Jeff Gauthier, Joon Lee, Daniel Seeff, Luciana Souza and Ben Wendel.

Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and Donovan, who traveled to India four decades ago to study transcendental meditation with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, will be joined by Eddie Vedder, Sheryl Crow, Ben Harper and several others at an April 4 fundraiser in New York for the David Lynch Foundation, which promotes the use of meditation by at-risk youths. The two surviving Beatles, however, are not planning to use the opportunity to come together, a spokeswoman for Starr said Wednesday. "They are doing their own sets," she said.

In a concert last month at Hollywood's Hotel Cafe, the buzzy English singer Paloma Faith crouched down near the floor to sing "Let Me Down Easy. " It's a tough-love song associated with a number of hardy soul-music veterans, including Bettye LaVette and the late Etta James, and Faith was doing what she could (despite her youth and a seriously movement-constricting dress) to channel some of their gravitas. LaVette does some crouching of her own on "Thankful N' Thoughtful," a powerful new covers album that finds the 66-year-old R&B singer tapping into the desperation of tunes like Neil Young's "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere" and "Everything Is Broken" by Bob Dylan.

For its 2013-14 season, the Broad Stage in Santa Monica will present appearances by actress Patti LuPone, opera singer Bryn Terfel, violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg and the Los Angeles dance group Bodytraffic. Members of the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela will also perform in a concert during the coming season, which the Broad announced Monday.  Leaders at the Broad also announced a new initiative designed to bolster the company's jazz offerings. A new Jazz Council, which will curate performances and events, will consist of Quincy Jones, Herb Alpert, Ruth Price, Jeff Gauthier, Joon Lee, Daniel Seeff, Luciana Souza and Ben Wendel.

BETTYE LAVETTE'S 2005 album "I've Got My Own Hell to Raise" was one of the year's most unlikely and welcome comebacks. It's a teary and raw R&B record of songs written for her by Lucinda Williams and Fiona Apple, among others, and it brought the 61-year-old singer a bit closer to the spotlight that eluded her for much of her decades-long career. Her follow-up, "The Scene of the Crime," could have proved to be an even stranger move.

You might have heard how the punk-rooted L.A. record company Anti- brought a neglected soul-music legend out of obscurity by recording an album pairing the singer with some contemporary songwriters and musicians.

The Early Show Julie Chen; Sara Gilbert; Sharon Osbourne; Holly Robinson Peete; Leah Remini; Marissa Jaret Winokur. (N) 7 a.m. KCBS Today Cheryl Hines; Willie Geist; Barbara Corcoran; Harley Pasternake; Donny Deutsch; Bettye Lavette. (N) 7 a.m. KNBC KTLA Morning News Sterling Knight. (N) 7 a.m. KTLA Good Morning America Alexa Ray Joel. (N) 7 a.m. KABC Live With Regis and Kelly Richard Dreyfuss ("Red"); co-host Mark Consuelos. (N) 9 a.m. KABC The View Gabriel Byrne.

Joe Henry has released 10 critically acclaimed albums, hired on as the producer of several prestigious projects (soul veterans Bettye Lavette and Solomon Burke, new folk heroine Mary Gauthier) and can name-drop music buddies such as Van Dyke Parks, Bill Frisell and Loudon Wainwright III. Nonetheless, the singer-songwriter is still a connoisseur's flavor, remaining largely under the radar of the literary-pop audience that could be filing him alongside its Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen collections.

UNDERRATED Inaugural celebrations: Admittedly, we hit the wall with the 24-hour Obama coverage on the news networks this past week, but only the most cynical among us can truly admit to being unmoved. Seriously, most occasions featuring awkward musical medleys with the likes of U2, Bruce Springsteen and Garth Brooks involve award shows and sporting events. It was heartening to see so much fuss about something truly historic. Indie 103.

Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and Donovan, who traveled to India four decades ago to study transcendental meditation with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, will be joined by Eddie Vedder, Sheryl Crow, Ben Harper and several others at an April 4 fundraiser in New York for the David Lynch Foundation, which promotes the use of meditation by at-risk youths. The two surviving Beatles, however, are not planning to use the opportunity to come together, a spokeswoman for Starr said Wednesday. "They are doing their own sets," she said.

BETTYE LAVETTE'S 2005 album "I've Got My Own Hell to Raise" was one of the year's most unlikely and welcome comebacks. It's a teary and raw R&B record of songs written for her by Lucinda Williams and Fiona Apple, among others, and it brought the 61-year-old singer a bit closer to the spotlight that eluded her for much of her decades-long career. Her follow-up, "The Scene of the Crime," could have proved to be an even stranger move.

You might have heard how the punk-rooted L.A. record company Anti- brought a neglected soul-music legend out of obscurity by recording an album pairing the singer with some contemporary songwriters and musicians.