TIME Magazine
October 14, 1996 Volume 148, No. 18
A HOLIDAY ALL HER OWN
SHE MAY EVOKE LADY DAY, BUT MADELEINE PEYROUX IS ONE OF A
KIND
CHRISTOPHER JOHN FARLEY
It's a gray, sprinkly day that seems Parisian, except it's
not; it's just another dank fall day on New York City's upscale
Upper West Side. Outside a cafe, lighting a cigarette in the
light rain, sits a woman who when she sings sounds for all the
world like Billie Holiday, but, of course, she's not. Her name is
Madeleine Peyroux. She is a 22-year-old American ex-expatriate
who had been living in Paris, singing in the streets for money,
but recently returned to the U.S. to pursue a more mainstream
singing career. Her debut album, Dreamland (Atlantic), just out,
is a bewitching blend of jazz, folk and blues--as well as the
most exciting, involving vocal performance by a new singer this
year. Peyroux's days of needing to play in the streets for cash
are probably over.
The vocals on Dreamland are immediately arresting. Like
Holiday, Peyroux has a bittersweet, brokenhearted alto; she
lingers and slides off notes, finding emotion in the slow, sad
fade rather than the obvious vocal burst. "When I first
heard [Peyroux], I thought, 'Hmmm--this is fascinating,'"
says Cyrus Chestnut, an acclaimed young pianist who plays on
Dreamland. "A lot of singers do Billie imitations, but this
was something completely different. It didn't sound contrived.
She had the nuances, the huskiness down. And she has her own
story to tell: with her voice, her heart, her spirit."
Peyroux (prounounced like the country Peru) was born in
Georgia, but after her parents divorced, her mother, a French
teacher, moved to Paris along with her daughter. Young Madeleine
soon began to explore the city. "I saw these street
performers and I was fascinated," she says. Soon she was one
of them, wandering the streets of Paris and Amsterdam, stealing
rides on trains, sleeping in friends' apartments.
Several years later, while she was visiting New York, Yves
Beauvais, a producer with Atlantic, saw Peyroux perform in a
club. She spurned his first attempts to sign her--at age 17, she
deemed herself too young--but then, last year, she felt she was
ready. "I thought, 'I might as well try it,'" she says.
"I had to make a commitment to myself."
Since recrossing the Atlantic, she has begun to make waves.
Her performance at a celebration of the film music of Duke
Ellington at New York City's Lincoln Center in May startled and
delighted those who heard it. As she took the stage to sing
Ellington's Saddest Tale--performed by Holiday in 1935--her
bearing was tentative, awkward. But when she started singing, her
performance was said to be impeccably phrased, suffused with
emotion; the New York Times said "she might as well have
been channeling Billie Holiday."
Dreamland shows that Peyroux is more than a vocal Ouija board.
On the very first track she stretches beyond jazz with a patient,
deeply pleasing rendition of Walkin' After Midnight, a song made
famous by country star Patsy Cline. And in a nod to her French
roots, Peyroux delivers a vibrant version of Edith Piaf's La Vie
en Rose. Dreamland features an impressive cast of supporting
players. Pianist Chestnut provides restrained invention on
Reckless Blues, guitarist Vernon Reid (formerly of the rock band
Living Colour) enlivens Muddy Water, and up-and-coming jazz stars
Marcus Printup (trumpet) and James Carter (saxophone) provide
lift to several other tracks.
But amid the covers and the stellar support, Peyroux still
stands out. She plays guitar sharply and ably on several tracks
and contributes three pop-style original compositions that work
well as blank canvases for the chiaroscuro of her voice. Young
singers are often narrowly subjective; they sing as if their
heartache were the first the world had ever known. The echo of
Holiday in Peyroux's voice tells the listener that her
lovesickness is not the first case, or the last. It makes her
music all the more haunting.