Madeleine Peyroux discusses her new CD with Sheilah Kast of NPR New York Bureau
(Soundbite of "I Have Two Loves") Ms. JOSEPHINE BAKER (Singer): (Singing in foreign language)
SHEILAH KAST, host:
In the 1940s, American-born Josephine Baker sang this song to allied troops during
World War II. I have two loves, goes the translation, my country and Paris. The sweet
melody seemed to salute the bonds between America and France, all the while, whispering
a nostalgia of an ex-patriot.
A new CD features a fresh interpretation of the song by another ocean-straddling artist,
Madeleine Peyroux.
(Soundbite of song)
Ms. MADELEINE PEYROUX (Singer): (Singing in foreign language)
KAST: Madeleine Peyroux was born in Georgia in 1973. She moved to Paris when she was
15 with her mother, a French teacher. Madeleine honed her singing on the streets of
Paris, busking with groups with names like the Riverboat Shufflers and the Lost
Wandering Blues And Jazz Band. At the tender age of 22, she made a splash with
her debut CD "Dreamland." Now eight years later, her second CD, "Careless Love"
has just been released on Rounder Records. And Madeleine Peyroux joins us from
our New York bureau.
Welcome.
Ms. PEYROUX: Hi.
KAST: It's nice to have you with us. So how do you feel your bicontinental
upbringing shaped you as a musician?
Ms. PEYROUX: The environment that I started to learn music in was one of a sort
of microcosm, sort of a small culture of international--we called ourselves
misfits--that felt at home there in this little Latin corner in Paris. Most
of the time, the bond was music and sort of the international cohesion that
we had, I guess.
(Soundbite of "Dance Me To The End Of Love")
Ms. PEYROUX: (Singing) Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin. Dance
me through the panic till I'm gathered safely in. Lift me like an olive branch
and be my homeward dove. Dance me to the end of love.
KAST: Besides channeling Josephine Baker, it's pretty stunning the way you also
sound like Billie Holiday, or you can sound like Billie Holiday, especially on the
Leonard Cohen song "Dance Me To The End Of Love." I'm sure this comparison comes
up again and again when critics write about your singing. Is that intimidating?
Ms. PEYROUX: Yes. (Laughing) It is intimidating, I think, and yet it's an
inspiration and a challenge.
KAST: But you did study the way Holiday does it, right?
Ms. PEYROUX: I listened to Billie Holiday in order to learn to sing these
songs in particular and I grew in to finding my own voice through her.
(Soundbite of "I'll Look Around")
Ms. PEYROUX: (Singing) I'll look around until I've found someone who laughs like you.
KAST: Larry Klein produced this CD. He's worked with Joni Mitchell and Shawn Colvin.
"I'll Look Around" is particularly gorgeous, a really lush sound. Is that Klein's
special touch?
Ms. PEYROUX: Larry Klein's arrangements are, for the most part, his on this
record. I mean--and for me it tends to put a lot of attention sort of the
spotlight on the vocal. So that was a big part of the process as well, being
very well supported as a singer in these arrangements.
(Soundbite of "I'll Look Around")
Ms. PEYROUX: (Singing) I'll know there's love. I'm dreaming of familiar old
love I always knew.
Much of the songs on this CD are not typical romantic love songs in my opinion.
And the more I sing them, the more I discover that to be honest with you. (Laughing)
My own song "Don't Wait Too Long" I think could be taken as a love song, but it's
also very much meant to be a platonic exploration of almost a brotherly love as
well because it has to do with encouraging somebody to get what they need out of life.
(Soundbite of "Don't Wait Too Long")
Ms. PEYROUX: (Singing) You can cry a million tears. You can wait a million years.
If you think that time will change your ways, don't wait too long.
KAST: You worked on that with Jesse Harris, who's a songwriter, superstar status after
writing Norah Jones' "Come Away With Me." Tell us about the process of songwriting with him.
Ms. PEYROUX: It's very easy to write songs with Jesse. He's always got some kind of
musical idea spinning around, sort of his head. And he's usually got a guitar slung
around his back. And we'd been strolling around Manhattan on the Upper West Side, I
think his old neighborhood probably, and--you know, finally sat down with the guitars
on the bench. And I think we had wasted so much time even that day trying to write a
song that we felt like it was--it would be appropriate to just sit down and pump it
out. He plays the guitar and I come up with an idea and all of a sudden the words are
coming out and I think it's an inspired process when it really works.
(Soundbite of song)
Ms. PEYROUX: (Singing) Maybe you got to lose it all before you find your way. Take a
chance. Play your part.
KAST: There's quite a range of material on the CD, from tunes by Leonard Cohen, W.C.
Handy, Hank Williams. What kind of material really catches your attention as a singer?
Ms. PEYROUX: These songs actually give a good example of the kind of music that I've
been living with from the early blues songs to the later folk songs. I think Leonard
Cohen's song and Elliott Smith may be the most modern ones on this particular record.
But the writers caught our ear because of the fact that it might be close to home for me.
(Soundbite of "This Is Heaven To Me")
Ms. PEYROUX: (Singing) When I hear them say there's better livin, let them go their
way to that better livin. I won't ever stray 'cause this is heaven to me.
"This Is Heaven To Me," of course, is--it's not necessarily a romantic song so it
wouldn't be confused as one. It is, however, a song about knowing that there's
something that we love more than anything else in the world and that that's what
we're going to be committed to. I'm glad that we--that Larry Klein kept it on the
list, that it closes the record because it means a lot to be able to sing a song
that hopefully is meant to touch almost everybody.
(Soundbite of "This Is Heaven To Me")
Ms. PEYROUX: (Singing) To sing your song all through the street, you raise your
head when day is done. Shout your thanks up to the sun. Oh, when I hear them say
there's better living, let them go their way...
KAST: Well, it's been eight years since your last CD. Where have you been? What
have you been doing?
Ms. PEYROUX: I haven't gone too far away, I think from being who I was before I
made the first record, but I had a wonderful time exploring certain things. I
explored religion for awhile and did a lot of reading and that became an ongoing
thing, sort of like opening a big box that doesn't bottom out. I've had some
adventures that, of course, sprung out of the first record, since then, some
of which were meeting family that I didn't know. And I have lots of family that
I had never met, family all over the United States. There's a family on my
father's side on New Orleans and Kentucky, and on my mother's side in Indiana.
And there's some family in California and Ohio. I also did a few cross-country
trips that I really did go and just spend a lot of time with a lot of people.
(Laughing) It's been an interesting eight years that I couldn't say I regret.
And I don't necessarily know that I'd like to wait another eight years to make
another record, but I'm grateful to be back now.
KAST: Madeleine Peyroux, her new CD "Careless Love" is on Rounder Records
and she joins us from our New York bureau. Thanks very much.
Ms. PEYROUX: Thank you, Sheilah.
KAST: There's more information, including full audio cuts from the CD
on our Web site, npr.org. This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. Liane
Hansen returns next week. I'm Sheilah Kast.
(Soundbite of "Don't Wait Too Long")
Ms. PEYROUX: (Singing) If I break your heart, but if you think that time
will change your ways, don't wait too long.
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