A pair of gifted singer/songwriters who, although unrelated, share a love of folk, indie, and Americana as well as the same surname, Pieta Brown and Chastity Brown co-headline a May 18 concert event at Maquoketa's Codfish Hollow Barn, the former performing alongside her ensemble The Taken, and the latter in support of her 2022 album Sing to the Walls.

On May 18, a revered group of chart-topping, Grammy-winning rockers will be celebrated when Maquoketa's Ohnward Fine Arts Center presents the six-piece tribute event Heartache Tonight: The Music of the Eagles, an evening of beloved, iconic hits sure to include such chart-toppers as "Hotel California," "Peaceful Easy Feeling," "Best of My Love," "One of These Nights," and, of course, "Heartache Tonight."

Known for his traditional style and eclectic combination of rockabilly, honkytonk, and traditional country music, a legendary talent brings his gifted ensemble to the University of Dubuque's Heritage Center in An Evening with Marty Stuart & His Fabulous Superlatives, a May 18 event with the artist who has released more than 20 major label albums and scored platinum sales, hit singles, and just about every honor the industry could bestow along the way.

A four-time Tony Award-winning smash that enjoyed Broadway runs with talents such as Ben Stiller, Edie Falco, Christopher Walken, and Stockard Channing, author John Guare's masterful dark comedy The House of Blue Leaves enjoys a May 17 through 26 run at Moline's Playcrafters Barn Theatre, this wild theatrical ride also lauded by Variety magazine as a stage work that "still sets the bar for smart comic lunacy."

With her most recent publication lauded by the Historical Novel Society as "well-researched" and "beautiful to behold." local author and native of China X.H. Collins will read from and discuss her 2020 novel Flowing Water, Falling Flowers on May 22, the in-person event held as part of the Asian American and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) Month celebration at the Davenport Public Library's Eastern Avenue Branch.

Delivering a close look at the artist's early years in New York with her husband Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia O'Keeffe's World: Focused on Nature will find Carol Ehlers leading a May 22 program at the Rock Island Public Library's Watts-Midtown Branch, the event's presenter exploring how O'Keefe's close-up and magnified flower, leaf, and landscape paintings forever affected the way we look at nature.

With Davenport's Figge Art Museum holding a small yet impressive collection of Medieval and early-Renaissance manuscripts from Europe, the Middle East, and India, a selection of 12 of these works will be on view through August 11, as Illumination: Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts from the Figge Collection offers a cross-cultural examination of hand-painted book illustrations and typography from the 15th and 16th centuries.

Boasting three Billboard top-10 album smashes in Roll the Bones, And the War Came, and Can't Wake Up, folk singer/songwriter Shakey Graves – the performance moniker of Austin, Texas-born Alejandro Rose-Garcia – headlines a May 10 concert at Davenport's Rhythm City Casino Resort Event Center, the artist's 2023 Movie of the Week lauded by Under the Radar magazine as "a heady intellectual concept laced with his silly sense of humor."

Appearing locally as the final guest in the 2023-24 season of Quad City Arts' Visiting Artist Series, native Hawaiian Daniel Pak will perform in a half-dozen free-to-the-public events from May 13 through 16, with TotemStar.org stating that the musician and educator "embodies the warmth and soul of the islands in his music of healing and joy."

Performing blues, folk, country, and Americana music that, according to NPR, “evokes the old-timey spirit of a thousand crackling 78 RPM records” whose “energy makes them feel new and alive,” Midwestern singer/songwriter Pokey LaFarge headlines a May 14 concert at Davenport's Redstone Room, the artist's 2022 album In the Blossom of Their Shade lauded by PopMatters as "vintage stuff that never sounds old as much as ripe and ready for cruising."

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