Madeleine Peyroux

First thing I heard Madeleine's voice I screamed "Billie Holiday!". And in her case, that's not just a blind uneducated comparison, it's something amazing! Ok, when you hear it better, you realise - that's not Billie, but it's very similar and equally beautiful. Similarity is strining, but there are important differences in senisibility. Simply, Peyroux is woman of our time, and Billie lived long time ago. Peyroux has a flavor of something very modern although her voice stunninlgy reminds of what Billie used to be.

Life took Madeleine from her hometown in Athens all over the world. She lived in California, Brooklyn and Paris, and it seem like all those places were beutifully reflected in her music. Especially on her only album Dreamland, which is in the middle between singer-songwriting rock, folk, jazz and pop. That's a wonderful piece of work that invloved Mark Ribot on guitar among the others. And needless to say, Ribot is the best solution for a crossover album of that type - he is a guy who knows how to play all of those genres and meld them together like nobody else.

The album includes many blues standards, like those of Fat Waller, Billie Holiday, Bessie Smith, but a very charming is the addition of La Vie En Rose, which we know from Edith Piaff's repertorie, who is obviously one more inspiration to Peyroux. The rest of it are Madeleine's own compositions which are as good as covers!

Also, Madeleine joined The Lilyth Fair together with some other female musicians and toured the world with them. In 1997, she appeared on Rainer Ptacek's Sweet Relief type of tribute where she preformed Life Is Fine together with Rainer. This also a good time to mention that Rainer was one of the best guitarists and totally underrated musicians ever. I'm really sad that at the moment I owe nothing by him except for this compilation, but he certainly deserves a special attention, and it's wonderful to hear Madeleine's and his colaboration. Rainer died not so long after the tribute came out.

Unfortunatelly, it's really hard to find any of the information about what's going on with her these days. But, as soon as I find something, I'll add it here.

HOME