George Crumb: Metamorphoses (Book I) by Marcantonio Barone: The subtitle: Ten Fantasy-Pieces (After Celebrated Paintings) for Amplified Piano. The composer: a nonagenarian who shows no signs of slowing down. The paintings: Two apiece by Klee and Chagall, one apiece by Van Gogh, Gauguin, Dalí, Whistler, Kandinsky, and Johns.

Although she died in 1984, Bessie Jones is a woman for our times. The granddaughter of a slave, she grew up in rural Georgia and at 30 underwent a transformative Christian experience, eventually becoming a one-woman, gospel-folk-song revival. In 2014, Tompkins Square released Get in Union, two CDs of mostly a cappella recordings made by Jones and the Georgia Sea Island Singers for Alan Lomax in 1960. An expanded, digital-only edition has just been released by Global Jukebox.

It’s hard to imagine that a few years ago a gauzy public statement in favor of free speech, boasting signatures from a host of left-wing luminaries such as Noam Chomsky, J.K. Rowling, Salman Rushdie, Gloria Steinem, and Fareed Zakaria, would have caused much of a stir. But last week, when Harper’s Magazine released a letter warning, “The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted,” the backlash was swift and sharp.

The hit musical Hamilton promotes inclusivity, democracy, and the power of youth to change the world. But to get tickets to its original Broadway run in 2015, you had to have money and connections—or divine intervention.

Country Music Hall of Famer Charlie Daniels, best known for his 1979 crossover hit “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” died on Monday at a hospital in Hermitage, Tenn., from a hemorrhagic stroke, according to his publicist. He was 83.

John Zorn: Virtue by Bill Frisell, Julian Lage, Gyan Riley: John Zorn’s latest guitar-trio compositions were inspired by Julian of Norwich, the medieval Christian mystic and anchoress of whom A.W. Tozer once wrote, “Long before Reformation times she was, in spirit, an evangelical.” As was the case with Frisell, Lage, and Riley’s prior Zorn recording, Nove Cantici Per Francesco D’Assisi, the connection between their spiraling interplay and Zorn’s source material resides mainly in the titles.

Coby James by Coby James: With John Mayer–level talent and similarly infectious bluesy pop-rock, the buzz around Coby James makes sense. The kid himself (he was only 17 when the album released) even admits, “I’ve got finesse,” when facing his haters in “No Trouble.” Tooting your own horn is an incomplete answer to bullying, but “Pressure” shows the singer and multi-instrumentalist ascribing the source of his strength more clearly to God, amid sticky rhythms and a great hook.