This week in Philly music, with Lionel Richie, Mary J. Blige, Peter Wolf, Thurston Moore, and Chubby Checker

This week features a pop superstar and “We Are the World” coauthor playing an intimate Philly club show; a British trip-hop innovator kicking off her first solo tour at the Met; an alt-rock guitar hero headlining a South Philly avant-jazz venue; a rock and roll storyteller par excellence; and the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul in Atlantic City.

That storyteller is J. Geils Band singer Peter Wolf, whose new Waiting on the Moon: Artists, Poets, Drifters, Grifters, and Goddesses will be hard to top when it comes to 2025 music memoirs. It tells of a series of brief and not-so-brief encounters with luminaries including Marilyn Monroe, John Lee Hooker, Van Morrison, Muddy Waters, Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, the Rolling Stones, and his ex-wife, Faye Dunaway. Wolf will be at the Free Library with Larry Platt on Thursday.

Also on Thursday, Daniel Higgs, the longtime singer of the Baltimore punk band Lungfish, plays a solo show at the quite cozy Side Chapel of the First Unitarian Church, with similarly psychedelic folk-leaning singer James Bradley Earl of Woods.

Keyboard player Melvin Seals and JGB keep the Jerry Garcia Band legacy alive at Ardmore Music Hall on Thursday and Friday. Philly-born bassist Gail Ann Dorsey — who toured frequently with David Bowie — plays City Winery on Friday.

Neal Francis — the New Orleans-enamored pianist originally from Livingston, N.J. — has two gigs on Friday in support of his new album, Return to Zero. He’s doing Free at Noon at the World Cafe Live and then playing Union Transfer later that night.

Mary J. Blige will be bringing her “For My Fans Tour” to the Wells Fargo Center in just a few weeks — on April 17, to be exact — but first the hip-hop and soul singer is coming to Atlantic City this weekend. She plays Boardwalk Hall on Friday, with Ne-Yo and Mario also on the bill.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominee Chubby Checker is at the American Music Theatre in Lancaster on Friday. Openers are Twitty and Lynn, a country duet act comprising the grandchildren of Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn. And if you want to take a little longer road trip to check out another historically significant Philly artist, rapper Beanie Sigel is celebrating the 20th anniversary of his album The B. Coming on Friday night at XL Live in Harrisburg, with his fellow State Property rappers Freeway and Peedi Crakk.

The Firey String Sistas — the jazz, soul, and global groove trio of Nioka Workman, Marlene Rice, and Mala Waldron — heat up the Community Education Center in West Philly on Saturday night, with Belden Bullock and EJ Strickland.

Roots music super-producer T-Bone Burnett — whose latest handiwork is Ringo Starr’s country album Look Up — came to Philly for the first time in 18 years in October, putting on a hushed, beautiful show with an ace band of Dennis Crouch on bass, Colin Linden on guitars, and David Mansfield on fiddle and mandolin. On Friday, the band is swinging back through, playing the Sellersville Theater in Bucks County.

Sonic Youth co-founder Thurston Moore is bringing percussionist William Winant and drummer and filmmaker Tom Surgal with him for a two-night residency at Solar Myth on Friday and Saturday.

With Geoff Barrow, Beth Gibbons founded the British trip-hop band Portishead, which made genre-defining albums with Dummy in 1994 and Portishead in 1997. Gibbons has worked with Rustin Man, the Polish Symphony Orchestra, and Kendrick Lamar but never released a proper solo album until last year’s Lives Outgrown. Her first solo U.S. tour kicks off at the Met Philly on Saturday.

That same night, just a few blocks away, Lionel Richie is playing Union Transfer. The 1980s pop superstar, Commodores founder, and American Idol judge who starred in the 2024 Netflix doc The Greatest Night In Pop, is playing a much smaller venue than is normal for him in a one-off show for Wells Fargo credit card holders only.