Business somewhat overshadowed this morning by the awful news about Levon Helm. Over the past couple of days though, these are the records we’ve been playing in the Uncut office.

After undergoing emergency open-heart surgery in 2010, Simone Felice appears to have taken solace in first principles. Having stepped away from the Felice Brothers in 2009 and put The Duke & The King on hiatus, his solo debut is simple and earthy, leaning on little more than organ, warm acoustic guitar and his wondrous singing, every note carrying the betraying quaver of a man who feels a little too much.

The Band's Levon Helm is said to be in the final stages of his "battle with cancer".

Neil Young & Crazy Horse have been confirmed to play the Outside Lands Festival in San Francisco in August. The Festival - which takes place at the Golden Gate Park - runs from August 10 - 12. The line-up also includes Jack White, Foo Fighters, Beck, Metallica and Stevie Wonder. Visit http://lineup.sfoutsidelands.com/ for further details.

PJ Harvey, Kate Bush and Adele have landed nominations for best album at next month's Ivor Novello awards, the first time that all the nods in the Best Album category are for women. Two of Adele's tracks, "Rolling In The Deep" and "Someone Like You" are up for the Most Performed Work award, while she will battle it out with Florence And The Machine and Ed Sheeran for Best Song.

Patti Smith has announced a UK tour in support of her new album, Banga. Patti's dates are: September 4th Newcastle O2 Academy 5th Glasgow O2 ABC 7th ­ Manchester Academy 9th ­ Leeds O2 Academy 10th ­ Cambridge Corn Exchange 12th Brighton Dome 13th ­ London Troxy Tickets are available at www.artistticket.com and www.gigsandtours.com, and via the 24 Hour Ticket Hotline: 0844 811 0051.

If you can't quite make it out, that’s Chuck Berry’s signature, top left in the picture above of a couple of pages from the April issue of Uncut. It was sent to me by Uncut reader Scott Ford, who lives in St Louis, Missouri, home of course to the immortal Chuck, and was accompanied by a great email that I’ve copied below.

Kraftwerk’s frontman Ralph Hütter has revealed that the pioneering electronic band will release a new album “soon”. Speaking to The New York Times, Hütter – the band’s sole remaining original member – confirmed that a new album is “under way”. When it arrives, the new album will be Kraftwerk’s first since 2003’s Tour De France Soundtracks. It will also be their first without Florian Schneider, who left the band in 2008.

Ray Davies has been announced as the latest addition to the line-up for this year's Hop Farm Festival. The festival, which will be headlined by Bob Dylan, Suede and Peter Gabriel, takes place in Paddock Wood in Kent from June 29 – July 1. Other new additions to the bill include Richard Ashcroft. It will be Ashcroft's only UK appearance of the year.

BBC4’s fine night of Southern Rock programming was still on my mind yesterday morning when I arrived back at Uncut, and a bit of chat about the shows at my Twitter feed eventually lead to a crowdsourced Southern Rock Playlist.