You'd never know it by listening to him, but every time Chris Botti picks up his instrument, he's wrestling with it.

The jazz trumpeter coaxes soothing, true sounds out of his instrument, and they woo and lull you.

But it ain't easy.

A country-music performer's decision to move to Nashville is typically the product of a dream. For Suzy Bogguss, it was eminently practical.

In the early 1980s, the Aledo native and Illinois State University graduate was knocking around the country, doing gigs at coffeehouses and ski resorts. She lived in the Quad Cities, Kewanee, Peoria.

She didn't envision a future as a respected and popular country singer. She didn't aspire to the gold and platinum records she would eventually earn.

"It just never really occurred to me that that's what my goal was going to be," she said in a phone interview last week, in advance of her May 12 performance with the Quad City Symphony Orchestra at the Adler Theatre. "It was just fun."

Returning with its most pop-friendly album to date, The Marlboro Chorus knocks out nine rock-and-roll numbers on American Dreamers. Drawing influence from Buddy Holly, Pink Floyd, and Bill Haley, American Dreamers sees The Marlboro Chorus putting aside art rock in favor of a straightforward album complete with guitar solos, magnificently simple lyrics, and a raw sound. From the black-and-white cover to the title of the record itself, American Dreamers feels so easy, but it was a long time coming.

Singer-songwriter Carrie Newcomer tells about a friend who leads a group of people who knit for the local food bank. They'll set up somewhere and knit with a sign that reads, "Knitting for the Food Bank."

"People will come and talk to them," Newcomer said in a phone interview last week. "Folks who might not maybe go up to someone on the corner and talk to somebody who has a sign will sit down with a group of women knitting and talk about the issue. 'What's happening with the food bank?'"