Dear old people who don’t feel that old but your children have just graduated high school: BECU ZooTunes presented by Carter Subaru is returning for the summer of 2011 with a lineup of all your old-person favorites. The whole series is a fundraiser for the Woodland Park Zoo, so even if you don’t remember where you were when you learned k.d. lang wasn’t straight, it’s a great way to spend a series of summer evenings in the North Meadow.

Taj Mahal and Joan Osborne open the series on June 22, and then you have your Chapin Carpenters and Cohns, your Williamses, your Robert fucking Cray Band ladies and gentlemen!, your Afrocubisms, your Indigo Girls (“Galileo”!), your Carliles, langs, and Go-Gos, your Carolina Chocolate Drops, and winding up August 21, your Manns and your Weepies.

New this year, Woodland Park Zoo members can buy ZooTunes tickets before the hoi polloi can elbow you out of the way. Member pre-sale is online only, starting 8:00 a.m. on May 5. You get up to eight pre-sale tickets per show (plus the usual free admission for one child 12 and under with each ticket purchased). Regular tickets go on sale online on May 6 at 8:00 a.m.

NB: “Concerts are held rain or shine—no ticket refunds.”

Full list of performers below:

June 22 – Taj Mahal / Joan Osborne

Taj Mahal

Composer, multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and Grammy winner Taj Mahal is one of the most prominent and influential figures in late 20th century blues and roots music. Though his career began more than four decades ago with American blues, he has broadened his artistic scope over the years to include music representing virtually every corner of the world—West Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, Europe, the Hawaiian islands and so much more. What ties it all together is his insatiable interest in musical discovery. Over the years, his passion and curiosity have led him around the world, and the resulting global perspective is reflected in his music today. His 2008 release, Maestro, marks the fortieth anniversary of Taj’s rich and varied recording career by mixing original material, chestnuts borrowed from vintage sources and newcomers alike. Taj continues to tour tirelessly throughout the U.S., Europe, Australia, New Zealand and beyond.

Joan Osborne

Singer-songwriter Joan Osborne is best known for her massive hit single “One Of Us,” which she released in 1995. She was nominated for five Grammy Awards, including Best New Artist, Record of the Year and Song of the Year (for “One Of Us”), and Album of the Year (for Relish). Her most recent album Little Wild One reunites the critically acclaimed artist with the same team that worked on her “One Of Us.”

June 26 – Marc Cohn / Mary Chapin Carpenter

Marc Cohn

Grammy award winning singer/songwriter Marc Cohn—perhaps best known for his hit “Walking in Memphis”—has enjoyed a long career filled with commercial success and accolades. His fans are dedicated and loyal to the tunesmith, who delivers live performances that are both intimate and powerful, creating a special environment for each audience. On his latest album, Listening Booth: 1970, Cohn deconstructs iconic songs that were released that year. Rolling Stone raved that “Cohn hits just the right note, letting the drama emerge from the songs themselves … He takes you from shattered dreams to spiritual deliverance.”

Mary Chapin Carpenter

Mary Chapin Carpenter celebrates her latest album, The Age of Miracles, which was released last spring to widespread critical acclaim. Over the course of a 12-album recording career, Carpenter has won five Grammy Awards and sold over 13 million records. Of the new music, The New York Times heralds, “…quietly spellbinding…the music of Ms. Carpenter is an unclassifiable hybrid of pop, folk, and country…” Carpenter has always professed a love for all kinds of music, and those influences come together in songs that speak to the most personal of life’s details as well as to the most universal.

June 29 – Lucinda Williams

It’s not all that hard to find an artist who’s capable of offering a guided tour of life’s dark clouds—nor is it rare to come into contact with one who can hone in on the silver lining. But the ability to do both with equal grace, well, that’s an altogether rarer gift, and it’s one that Lucinda Williams displays remarkably on her latest album, Blessed. Williams has never hesitated to wave that flag of iconoclasm, but she’s never used it as a shield. Ever since the release of her 1978 debut Ramblin’ on My Mind, the Louisiana-bred singer-songwriter has been ready, willing and able to call upon both her natural affinity for roots music and her familial literary tradition.

June 30 – The Robert Cray Band

As a five-time Grammy Award-winning, singer/songwriting guitar legend, it would be hard to overstate Robert Cray’s impact on rock, rhythm and blues. He is considered “one of the greatest guitarists of his generation” and since his 1980 album debut Who’s Been Talkin, Cray has been inviting audiences along on his epic musical journey—breaking through the pop ceiling with his gate crashing/blues-edged trademark sound, distinct playing style and daring innovations. Robert Cray has released 20 award winning multi-platinum albums, received 15 Grammy nominations, and with the Robert Cray Band has performed thousands of sold-out shows worldwide. Robert Cray will be inducted into the 2011 Blues Hall of Fame in the spring.

July 6 – AfroCubism

AfroCubism is the long-awaited collaboration between Cuban and Malian musicians meant to take place when the Buena Vista Social Club was born, a “collaboration well worth the wait,” says The New Yorker. The New York Times describes it as “a rich yet subtle fusion of African and Cuban sounds.” Fronting the Cuban team is the cowboy-hatted singer and guitarist Eliades Ochoa, singer of the great Buena Vista theme “Chan Chan.” The two original Malian invitees are multi award-winning ngoni lute master Bassekou Kouyate and the extraordinary Rail Band guitarist Djelimady Tounkara, both universally agreed to be among the world’s great instrumentalists. Joining them are Eliades’ Grupo Patria, amongst Cuba’s longest running and most revered bands, the mercurial kora genius Toumani Diabaté, legendary Malian griot singer Kasse Mady Diabaté and the innovatory balafon player Lassana Diabaté.

July 20 & 21 – Indigo Girls with Mount Moriah

Indigo Girls

Devoted environmental and social justice activists and lifelong music-industry mavericks, Amy Ray and Emily Saliers, known as the Indigo Girls, have spent over two decades pushing musical and social boundaries. The Grammy-winning singer-songwriters celebrate their long-standing passion for live performances on their new release, Staring Down the Brilliant Dream on IG Recordings/Vanguard Records including 31 live performances from 2006-2009, hand selected by the band.

Mount Moriah

Heather McEntire (of post-punk veterans Bellafea) and Jenks Miller (of heavy-psych/metal outfit Horseback) met in 2005, while working at a record store in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. After collaborating as Un Deux Trois on the stripped-down, pop-inflected Lovers EP (2007), they established Mount Moriah as an outlet for their mutual interest in classic American folk and rock music. Mount Moriah’s 2010 EP, The Letting Go, highlighted the band’s thematic range, moving from delicate acoustic narratives to a dark, fuzzed-out, soulful stomper in just three tracks. Mount Moriah’s long-awaited, self-titled debut—recorded by Brian Paulson and featuring guest instrumentation by members of St. Vincent, Megafaun, and many other North Carolina-based musicians—is cut from the same cloth, offering a far-reaching and non-traditional take on classic folk themes like devotion, tribulation, redemption and an indelible sense of place.

July 29 – Brandi Carlile

After debuting with her self-titled album in 2005, the Washington state-bred Carlile saw her fanbase mushroom with her sophomore disc, The Story. Among the growing legion of Carlile fans is Elton John. “Brandi has an amazing voice,” he says. “She’s a great songwriter and has a tremendous career ahead of her.” The Story upped the ante considerably, selling over 350,000 copies and rising to No. 41 on the Billboard album sales chart. Along the way, she’s toured with the likes of Ray LaMontagne and Sheryl Crow. She released her third album, Give Up the Ghost, in 2009 and toured relentlessly with her longtime bandmates. This May, the acclaimed singer-songwriter will mark another milestone with the release of Live at Benaroya Hall with the Seattle Symphony. The live performance features arrangements from Elton John’s legendary arranger Paul Buckmaster as well as Sean O’Loughlin, renowned for his work with Chris Isaak and Belle & Sebastian.

Aug. 10 – k.d. lang and The Siss Boom Bang

Sing it Loud, released this year, is lang’s first record made entirely with a band of her own since the pair of albums with the Reclines that launched her career more than 20 years ago. lang has won four Grammy Awards, eight Juno Awards, a BRIT, an AMA, a VMA, and four awards from GLAAD. In 1996, she received Canada’s highest civilian honor, the Order of Canada.

Aug. 14 – The Go-Go’s Ladies Gone Wild Tour

Thirty years after the release of Beauty and the Beat, their double-platinum debut album that cemented in our hearts and our pop-vernacular such smash hits as “Our Lips Are Sealed” and “We Got the Beat,” the Go-Go’s and their fans prepare for a slew of 30th anniversary activities for the 2011 summer kicking off with the Ladies Gone Wild nation tour with the legendary Go-Go’s Belinda Carlisle, Charlotte Caffey, Gina Schock, Jane Wiedlin and Kathy Valentine. In August, the Go-Go’s will receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Aug. 17 – Carolina Chocolate Drops

Nonesuch Records released the label debut of North Carolina-based string band the Carolina Chocolate Drops in 2010. Produced by critically acclaimed recording artist and songwriter Joe Henry, Genuine Negro Jig features string band interpretations of Blu Cantrell’s beat-box driven R&B single “Hit ‘Em Up Style” and Tom Waits’ “Trampled Rose,” as well as a pair of original compositions, alongside traditional tracks such as “Cornbread and Butterbeans” and “Trouble in Your Mind.” It is the band’s second record; their 2007 release, Dona Got a Ramblin’ Mind, was praised by Paste for “bravely and expertly reclaiming the string band tradition for modern African-American culture,” while NPR’s Weekend Edition calls the band “the hottest thing to hit the old-time music community in decades.”

Aug 21 – Aimee Mann with The Weepies

Aimee Mann

After originally breaking onto the music scene during the ‘80s leading the post-new wave pop group ’Til Tuesday, Aimee Mann has gone on to establish herself as one of the most prominent singer-songwriters of her generation. Her successful solo career has spanned across several critically acclaimed albums, including the massively popular soundtrack for the film Magnolia, which garnered an Academy Award nomination for Best Song in 2000. Time magazine has said of her, “Mann has the same skill that great tunesmiths like McCartney and Neil Young have: the knack for writing simple, beautiful, instantly engaging songs.” Aimee has been touring on the heels of her most recent album, Smilers (SuperEgo Records) and is currently writing a musical based upon her concept album The Forgotten Arm.

The Weepies

Since they met in a Cambridge folk club nine years ago, The Weepies have progressed from an indie duo playing house concerts to ranking on the Billboard Charts. Crystallizing their organic acoustic sound and pop harmonies, the California duo has come up with their deepest, most accessible record yet in Be My Thrill. Third in a trilogy for Nettwerk Records, The Weepies once again worked with drummer Frank Lenz, guitarist Meg Toohey and string player Oliver Kraus, adding bass legends Tony Levin and Larry Klein to the mix.