Madeleine Peyroux

Vocalist Madeleine Peyroux commands international acclaim for her dusky, lyrical style and affinity for reinterpreting classic jazz, blues, and folk standards. She first surfaced in her teens as a street-busking performer in Paris' Latin Quarter during the 1980s, where audiences and critics drew favorable comparisons to legendary jazz singer Billie Holiday, eventually drawing the attention of the music industry. Her debut album, 1996's Dreamland, assembled a roster of noted jazz artists and earned praise for her distinctive approach to blues and jazz standards. The Larry Klein-produced follow-ups, 2004's Careless Love and 2006's Half the Perfect World, performed even more strongly, entering the Top 200 and attaining gold status. Peyroux sustained a low-key yet consistently lauded trajectory across later releases including 2011's Standing on the Rooftop, 2016's Secular Hymns, 2018's Anthem, and 2024's Let's Walk.

Born in Athens, Georgia in 1973, Peyroux spent her formative years in Southern California and Brooklyn before relocating to Paris with her mother at age 13 following her parents' divorce. There she began singing, inspired by the street musicians of Paris' Latin Quarter. By 1989 she was performing with the old-timey jazz band the Riverboat Shufflers. Around age 16 she joined the vintage-inspired ensemble the Lost & Wandering Blues & Jazz Band, spending several years touring Europe with jazz standards by such legends as Fats Waller, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and others.

Atlantic Records A&R man Yves Beauvais eventually signed Peyroux after hearing her perform. She issued her debut album, Dreamland, in 1996. Recorded with a lineup of top-level New York jazz musicians that included pianist Cyrus Chestnut, drummer Leon Parker, guitarists Vernon Reid and Marc Ribot, and saxophonist/clarinetist James Carter, the set highlighted Peyroux's genre-crossing treatment of standards from the 1920s and '30s. Alongside Fats Waller's "I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter," Billie Holiday's "Gettin' Some Fun Out of Life," and Bessie Smith's "Lovesick Blues," she included three original compositions, among them "Always a Use," which she accompanied on guitar.

Although Peyroux maintained an active touring schedule, eight years passed before she completed her next project, 2004's Careless Love. Produced by Larry Klein for Rounder Records, the album broadened her palette to encompass a more contemporary and stylistically wide-ranging selection of covers, among them Elliott Smith's "Between the Bars," Bob Dylan's "You're Going to Make Me Lonesome," and Hank Williams' "Weary Blues." It garnered extensive critical praise and achieved gold certification in several countries, including the United States.

Following that success, Peyroux returned in 2006 with the Klein-produced Half the Perfect World. In addition to standards and reworkings of songs by Serge Gainsbourg and Tom Waits, the eagerly awaited album featured a duet with k.d. lang. It reached number 33 on the Billboard 200. Her third Rounder release, 2009's Bare Bones, advanced her sound further through an entire set of original compositions, several co-written with producer Klein, Steely Dan's Walter Becker, and guitarist Julian Coryell. Though something of a creative risk, the album was embraced by fans and debuted at number one on the Billboard jazz chart.

After a period away from recording, Peyroux resurfaced in 2011 with Standing on the Rooftop on Decca. Produced by Craig Street, the album featured Peyroux supported by a stellar ensemble that included violinist Jenny Scheinman, guitarists Marc Ribot and Chris Bruce, bassist Meshell Ndegeocello, and drummer Charlie Drayton, with additional guest contributions from Patrick Warren and Allen Toussaint. Alongside eight originals, she offered elegant interpretations of the Beatles' "Martha My Dear," Bob Dylan's "I Threw It All Away," and Robert Johnson's "Love in Vain."

For her subsequent album, 2013's Klein-produced The Blue Room, Peyroux found inspiration in Ray Charles' revolutionary 1962 recording Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music. Along with selections from Charles' original album, she reworked contemporary songs in a comparable vein, many supported by orchestral arrangements from Vince Mendoza. The project earned a Grammy nomination for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical.

In 2016 Peyroux marked twenty years as a recording artist with her seventh studio album, Secular Hymns. One of her most eclectic works, it blended soul, jazz, blues, and dub textures across covers of songs by Townes Van Zandt, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Willie Dixon, Linton Kwesi Johnson, and others. She then rejoined longtime producer Klein for 2018's Anthem. Titled after the Leonard Cohen song included on the album, the release also incorporated Peyroux's songwriting collaborations with Klein, guitarist and primary lyricist David Baerwald, organist Patrick Warren, and drummer Brian MacLeod.

Six years elapsed before Peyroux issued another album. After touring in support of Anthem, the global onset of COVID-19 reshaped daily life. Observing shifts in society, culture, and politics, she found that the absence of her musical community unexpectedly granted her time to write. Peyroux enlisted longtime collaborator, multi-instrumentalist, and arranger Jon Herington of Steely Dan. They exchanged separately written and rewritten material, emailing recorded versions back and forth in what Peyroux describes as "a shadow of reckoning." Upon hearing a demo, producer Elliott Scheiner, known for work with Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles, insisted she record an album consisting solely of her own songs, employing Herington's arrangements. Although she had previously collaborated with co-writers, these tracks were hers alone. The band comprised keyboardist Andy Ezrin, bassist Paul Frazier, and drummer Graham Hawthorne, with backing vocals supplied by Catherine Russell, Cindy Mizelle, and Keith Fluitt. Titled Let's Walk, the album appeared in June 2024 on Just One Records.