Music for Philly lovers with Nels Cline, Stevie Nicks, Joni Mitchell, Making Time’s Valentimes, and more

Nels Cline has a special relationship with Philadelphia.

Ars Nova Workshop founder Mark Christman has brought the Wilco guitarist and Brooklyn avant-jazz musician to town more than a dozen times. The most Philly-focused appearance was 2018′s Lovers (For Philadelphia), a paean to the city’s music history that played Union Transfer, which Philly proud bassist Christian McBride turned into an episode of NPR Jazz Night in America.

This weekend, Ars Nova is presenting Cline in a three-show residency at Solar Myth in South Philly with his Consentrik Quartet. The guitar hero, who wows fans with his “Impossible Germany” solo, will be joined by Ingrid Laubock on sax, Chris Lightcap on bass, and Tom Rainey on drums. One of those shows is a Saturday matinee at the highly civilized hour of 3 p.m. More of that please!

Speaking of lovers, it’s nearly Valentine’s Day. Which means it’s time for DJ and impresario Dave Pianka’s annual Making Time Valentime’s celebration. It’s Saturday at Warehouse on Watts, with Dave P., Nick Léon, Identified Patient, QRTR, Ayesha, and Jewelsea.

Mitski, whose The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We, was one of last year’s best, plays two shows at the Met Philly this week. And the big pop star on the immediate horizon is Stevie Nicks. The two-time Rock and Roll Hall Fame inductee is at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Atlantic City on Saturday.

A more unlikely casino headliner is Band of Horses, the Ben Bridwell-led Pacific Northwest rock band that returned to form with their 2022 album, Things Are Great. The flannel flying foursome bring their scruffy sound to the Excite Center at Parx in Bensalem on Saturday. They’ll perform two sets, acoustic and electric.

It’s a strong weekend of Philly bands at Johnny Brenda’s. South Philly hip-hop duo Reef Tha Lost Cauze and Caliph-Now hold down Friday night. Reef’s new The Triumphant is his first in six years. Saturday is another tantalizing double bill, with Moustapha Noumbissi and Nik Greeley.

It’s Mardi Gras season, and a leading practitioner arrives at 118 North in Wayne on Thursday in zydeco scion C.J. Chenier & the Red Hot Louisiana Band. That same night, DJ Shadow — the mixmaster producer behind the sample-mad masterpiece Entroducing, as well as the new Action Adventure — plays Union Transfer.

Minas, the Philadelphia Brazilian band of duo Orlando Haddad and Patricia King pay tribute to Astrud Gilberto, who died in Philadelphia last June. That’s upstairs at the Lounge at World Cafe, while country singer Jamie Wyatt is downstairs in the Music Hall.

On Friday at the WCL, Philly’s Mannequin Pussy will offer a taste of their new album, I Got Heaven, due on March 1, in a Free at Noon show.

At Ardmore Music Hall, Bob Marley’s birthday — actually Feb. 6 — will be celebrated Saturday by Jamaican roots reggae singer Luciano. Then on Feb. 12 at the Main Line club, actor Michael Shannon — who played George Jones in George & Tammy — teams with guitarist Jason Narducy to sing the songs of R.E.M.’s Murmur.

New albums in heavy rotation: The Interrogator by the Paranoid Style, the D.C. band named after Richard Hofstadter’s 1964 essay The Paranoid Style in American Politics led by whip-smart songwriter Elizabeth Nelson. Brainy, in the best way. And Paul Bunyan’s Slingshot by Liquid Mike, the Michigan band that lives it up with dirty, 1990s-style power-pop.

It’s post-Grammys week, so this week’s playlist includes songs highlighted during Sunday’s ceremony.

Joni Mitchell sang a moving “Both Sides Now.” It was written in Philadelphia and performed for the first time on late Philadelphia folk deejay Gene Shay’s WHAT-FM radio show in 1967. A version from that year at the Second Fret, the long-gone Sansom Street coffee house, is on her Vol. 1: The Early Years box set.

Other Grammy nuggets: Billy Joel finished the show with “Turn the Lights Back On,” his first new pop song in 17 years. It’s pretty good, as Billy Joel ballads go. The Tracy Chapman-Luke Combs “Fast Car” duet was sweet. And Philly-connected boygenius won three Grammys. “Powers,” from the band’s EP The Rest, made its debut at the Mann Center in September.