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Dates Appearing: August 7 - 10 Current Release: Dreamland |
As a teenager living in Europe, Madeleine Peyroux learned about music on the street - a place where songs and expertise were passed along from musician to musician, and a good performance translated into dinner and enough gas money to make it to the next city. Her goals were uncomplicated and immediate. "I've always loved singing," says Peyroux, who currently makes her home in New York City. "I find it exhilarating."
With a timeless, dark, haunting voice that seems to find comfort in the garments of melancholy the singer/songwriter/guitarist now makes her Atlantic Records debut with "DREAMLAND."
Produced by Yves Beauvais and bassist/arranger Greg Cohen (Tom Waits's collaborator for nearly 20 years, Victoria Williams, Lou Reed, John Zorn, Woody Allen), the album features a cast of top players, among them Atlantic labelmates Cyrus Chestnut (piano), Regina Carter (violin), and James Carter (tenor saxophone, bass clarinet), along with guitarist Vernon Reid, drummer Leon Parker, sought-after New York guitarist Marc Ribot (Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, Marianne Faithfull), and others. Madeleine's entrancing vocals are expertly served by emotive playing and rich, varied instrumentation, including marimba, Dobro, harmonium, Hammond B3 organ, accordion, harpsichord, and banjo.
"DREAMLAND" applies a cosmopolitan sense to vintage blues tunes and their offshoots, such as torch songs and country ballads," wrote Billboard in a recent cover story. "Heard from Peyroux's perspective and aided by Cohen's witty arrangements, they sound utterly enchanting and thoroughly modern."
Madeleine's impressive skill as a songwriter emerges on her three "DREAMLAND" originals: " Always A Use"; "Hey Sweet Man," a Dobro/vocal piece written on a Paris subway; and "Dreamland," which she wrote shortly after leaving the busking life. "It was the beginning of 1993 and I had a lot of things on my mind," says Madeleine of the album's bright, hopeful title track. "One way of making progress towards getting myself together was to write that song."
In addition to her original compositions, "DREAMLAND"'s material is drawn from such diverse sources as Edith Piaf ("La Vie En Rose"), Patsy Cline ("Walkin' After Midnight"), Fats Waller ("I'm Gonna Sit Right Down And Write Myself A Letter"), the Ziegfeld Follies ("Was I?"), Billie Holiday ("(Getting Some) Fun Out Of Life"), and Bessie Smith ("Muddy Water," "Reckless Blues," "Lovesick Blues"). "She's one of my idols," says Madeleine of Smith. "She sang songs with a woman's character, and confirmed the fact that women have something to say in their own right. Just the sound of her voice tells you that."
Born in Athens, Georgia and raised between Southern California, Brooklyn, and Paris, Peyroux was performing by age 15, when she began busking through the City of Light. "I started out just wanting to get out ot the house.", says Madeleine "So I took my guitar and learned some music." She was quickly drawn to the Latin Quarter, where the lively jazz scene and community of street performers formed a natural magnet for a curious and eager young musician.
Madeleine had moved from Brooklyn to Paris in 1987, when her mother took a job with an international bank. "Back then, I had this idea that I was going to finish high school, go to college, and get a degree - both of my parents had, and that was my idea of the future," she says. "I didn't really question it, although I didn't want to do it that much. I didn't want to live up to that sort of expectation...and I didn't."
By 1989, Madeleine was acting as the hat-passer for a group of busking musicians called the Riverboat Shufflers. Eventually, she convinced the band to let her sing. It was then that she first stepped on to a tarmac stage to sing the only song in her repertoire..."Georgia." Soon after, Madeleine found herself singing a cappella in an impromptu street corner audition for The Lost Wandering Blues & Jazz Band. "The leader of the band came up to me on the street and said, 'Okay, sing a song for me right now,'" says Peyroux. "So I sang 'Jeepers Creepers' and just snapped my fingers." She was 16-year sold.
Madeleine spent the next three years touring across Europe in a cramped brown Mercedes with the otherwise all-guy troupe of Paris-based buskers. "There was so much stuff in that car," says Madeleine, rolling her eyes. "There were four or five of us plus a wash tub, mouse amps, a trumpet, two guitars, and all the duffel bags and sleeping bags." With Madeleine playing wash tub bass and singing, The Lost Wandering Blues & Jazz Band would perform 1930's-era revue sets, typically consisting of numbers by Fats Walter, Billie Holiday, and Ella Fitzgerald, among others.
For Madeleine, many of the songs on "DREAMLAND" come with their own separate side stories and unique interpretative viewpoints directly tied to her busking days. "Songs I learned from different friends will always be associated with those street musicians I met in Paris," she says. "With a song like 'Walkin' After Midnight,' there's more to it because you've lived it. And if you're playing a blues song on the street, you have more to sing the blues about than if you were sitting at home trying to make sense of a piece of sheet music. It's a whole other world."
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