Show #77: Madeleine Peyroux

My first encounter with Madeleine Peyroux came in April 2004 when I was driving back from Louisiana after my father's death. It was a twenty-some-odd hour drive and being in a car alone with only my thoughts wasn't too much fun. And so it was nice to find the local NPR station which was playing one of her songs. Peyroux's voice was absolutely beautiful and a breath of fresh air after having spent a couple weeks totally alone in my dad's house sorting out his estate.

Although born in 1974 in Athens, Georgia - the home of REM - Peyroux got her start singing on the streets of Paris as a teenager. She eventually joined the Lost Wandering Blues and Jazz Band which toured around Europe. In 1996 she released her first album, Dreamland. The attention it garned led to appearance on the Lilith Fair tour. Peyroux took a rather low-key approach to her career and shunned the spotlight only to reemerge in 2004 with Careless Love.

The most obvious comparison is Billie Holiday with her smoke & whiskey vocals. Musically, Careless Love was a mix of originals and covers by such people as Hank Williams and Bob Dylan. Blues and country met in jazz. Peyroux plays acoustic guitar and you'll hear in today's show songs that have the more traditional jazz piano along side those with her playing the guitar. While her affinity for Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and other like icons of music from the first half of the 20th century is readily apparent, Peyroux manages to mix things up enough to make the old new again.

This week's show was recorded on 8 June 2005 at the Park West in Chicago.

Setlist:

Don't Wait Too Long
Dance Me to the End of Love
Don't Cry Baby
J'ai Deux Amours
Careless Love
I Hear Music
I'll Look Around
Lonesome Road
Desintation Moon
This is Heaven To Me
Walkin' After Midnight

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Madeleine Peyroux