Live In Concert from NPR's All Songs Considered Folgen

Emmylou Harris' Grammy-festooned career stretches back more than 40 years, to her legendary early collaborations with the late country-folk legend Gram Parsons. Hard Bargain, her new album, is suffused with mourning, both for Parsons (in "The Road") and for her late friend Kate McGarrigle, whom she memorably memorializes in "Darlin' Kate." But the Country Music Hall of Famer still knows where and how to locate sweetness and joy in her music, and she remains vital and contemporary. Here, Harris closes out the 2011 Newport Folk Festival in Newport, R.I. joined on stage by many special guests: Pete Seeger, The Civil Wars, David Wax Museum and more.

Joy Williams and John Paul White were strangers when they were paired up at a Nashville songwriting session in 2008, but you'd never know that now: Though not romantically involved, they perform their sweet, harmony-rich folk-pop songs with loving chemistry, often staring sweetly into each other's eyes. After attracting huge buzz at this year's SXSW music festival, the pair has gone on to be a large-scale cult item, thanks in part to the warmly winning songs on this year's Barton Hollow. The Civil Wars draw heavily from that album, and a few choice covers, when the band performs live at the 2011 Newport Folk Festival in Newport, R.I.

Last year, Boston's David Wax Museum couldn't play the Newport Folk Festival without first winning a contest. But talk about making the most of an opportunity: The band was everywhere at Newport last year, passing out CDs and signing bands up to its mailing list when it wasn't breaking spontaneously into song every chance it got. Since that breakthrough, the group has found a national audience for its recent album Everything Is Saved, which finds David Wax mixing the roots of American and Mexican folk music while Suz Slezak gives the band's music the percussive edge that can only come from a stick dragged rhythmically against a donkey's jawbone. Hear David Wax Museum perform live at the 2011 Newport Folk Festival in Newport, R.I.