Jeffrey Foucault

Don't let anybody tell you that if the band is from California, they must play newgrass. This is bluegrass, as good as it gets, with boss lady Lewis' fiddling as precise and fine as any, her voice as sweet as ever.

It's about time Philly's kickingest Brazilian band put out a recorded artifact of the good times you had partying to all those drums.

"The wages of sin don't adjust for inflation/ It's a buyer's market when you sell your soul." That's the heart of the title song on Foucault's new Ghost Repeater. Not all the songs are so darkly funny, but all function as polished short stories. This is a CD launch worth toasting.

To avoid feeling totally inadequate, do not visit Sara Hickman's Web site to see what she's been up to since she last crossed your consciousness. Just three award-winning kids' CDs and a world of creative and volunteer activities. She needed two discs to contain everything she wanted to say on Motherlode — released on her own Sleeveless label.

Edgy klezmer is the Klezmatics' trademark. Their latest exploits take them into the world of Woody Guthrie, setting lyrics from his Coney Island years in a number of world music frames, with Celtic singer Susan McKeown as guest.

Nobody rocks in the old, original downhome style like Big Sandy. He and his band could be called Time Warp Boppers — their show takes you back to the stuff that defined rock 'n' roll.

One of the hottest Klezmer groups, with Philly's Susan Watts on trumpet. Adrienne Cooper sings a variety of Yiddish songs, making a Mikveh show much more than an evening of blazing folk dances.

The players are masters of many folk traditions and traditional instruments. But for Sones de Mexico the music is living heritage, not dusty old tunes learned from 78s, so there will be something fresh even for experts in Mexican music.

In Africa, kora is the stringed accompaniment of griots, the oral historians. For centuries, a griot's life was something you were born into, like royalty, with similar respect and responsibility for keeping the people's stories straight. Bo Cissoko and his cousin Sekou Kouyaté inherited the role but now play dual koras, fronting a Guinean group now HQ'd in Marseille. They pair the koras with a variety of other instruments for a breadth of repertoire, including Afropop,with its bubbly guitar goosing the rhythm, and nods to reggae.

Ivers is hardly known for sticking strictly to tradition, so it remains to be seen how she handles An Nollaig: An Irish Christmas. The PR fluff names holiday favorites but it is hard to imagine this thoroughly New York Irishwoman changing her world music-fusing habits. Come with an open mind and a dancing spirit and you are sure to be rewarded.