Madeleine Peyroux

About

Also known as: Madelaine Peyroux, Madeleine Peiroux, Madeline Payroux, Madeline Petroux, Madeline Peyroux, Medeleine Peyroux, Peyroux, Madeleine

Madeleine Peyroux built her sound on the streets of Paris, busking in the Latin Quarter as a teenager before anyone had heard of her. That street experience, playing vintage jazz and blues with groups like The Lost Wandering Blues and Jazz Band, shaped the warm, smoky vocal style that critics have compared to Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and Edith Piaf. Her 1996 debut Dreamland drew on that same repertoire, covering songs associated with Holiday, Bessie Smith, and Fats Waller alongside seasoned players like Marc Ribot and Vernon Reid. It was Careless Love in 2004 that put her on the map properly, going gold with half a million copies sold and featuring material from Bob Dylan, Hank Williams, and Leonard Cohen. Producer Larry Klein stayed on for Half the Perfect World, recorded with k.d. lang and Walter Becker, and again for Bare Bones in 2009, on which Peyroux wrote every track. Her guitar playing is notably bare, no plectrum, no fingerpicks, and effects kept to a minimum, which fits the stripped back intimacy she brings to everything she records.