|
Madeleine Peyroux was born in 1974 in Athens, Ga. Her parents were both educators -- her mother was a French teacher and her father was a university professor of drama and film. |
She began singing along to her father's records as a kid -- his collection of New Orleans Jazz, Texas swing and Fats Waller reflected his Louisiana/Texarkana upbringing. The eclectic mix of music also set Madeleine on a unique and varied musical path.
The family moved around a number of times during Madeleine's childhood from Georgia to California to Brooklyn. In New York, Peyroux found herself drawn to pop music icons like Madonna and Michael Jackson, and later as a young teenager, she began listening to Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. It was at this time that Peyroux began learning to play the guitar.
When she was 13, Peyroux and her mother moved to France. The move was difficult, but Madeleine soon became fascinated with Parisian street musicians. She began skipping school to hang out with these musicians and by age 15, she had left home and taken up with a group of traveling street musicians called the Lost Wandering Blues and Jazz Band. She toured Europe with them for the next three years and received her education in the blues and early jazz.
By 18, Peyroux was weary of the wandering minstrel lifestyle. She settled down briefly, though she continued playing and performing in France with occasional trips back to the states. She was "discovered" by an Atlantic Records rep during a set in a New York club and her first album, Dreamland, was released shortly thereafter. The 1996 release was a critical success and the 22-year-old Peyroux found herself opening for Nina Simone, pop-singer Sarah McLachlan, and performing at music festivals around the world.
Instead of diving headlong into superstardom, Peyroux retreated to the small clubs and even the street performances of her youth. It was eight more years before she released her second album, Careless Love, which, since its release in 2004, has gone gold in France, the UK and Australia and is on that path in the United States.
Check out this week's Piano Jazz Shorts: the Piano Jazz podcast.
Subscribe!
Set List for Madeleine Peyroux on Piano Jazz:Dance Me To the End Of Love (Cohen)
I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself A Letter (Alhert, Young)
I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate (Piron)
Careless Love (Handy, Koenig, Williams)
Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans (Alter, DeLange)
J'ai Deux Amours (Konyn, Scotto, Vantard)
Don't Cry Baby (Bernice, Unger, Johnson)
Don't Wait Too Long (Harris, Klein, Peyroux)
Blue Skies (Berlin)
Lonesome Road (Austin, Shilkret)
The family moved around a number of times during Madeleine's childhood from Georgia to California to Brooklyn. In New York, Peyroux found herself drawn to pop music icons like Madonna and Michael Jackson, and later as a young teenager, she began listening to Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. It was at this time that Peyroux began learning to play the guitar.
When she was 13, Peyroux and her mother moved to France. The move was difficult, but Madeleine soon became fascinated with Parisian street musicians. She began skipping school to hang out with these musicians and by age 15, she had left home and taken up with a group of traveling street musicians called the Lost Wandering Blues and Jazz Band. She toured Europe with them for the next three years and received her education in the blues and early jazz.
By 18, Peyroux was weary of the wandering minstrel lifestyle. She settled down briefly, though she continued playing and performing in France with occasional trips back to the states. She was "discovered" by an Atlantic Records rep during a set in a New York club and her first album, Dreamland, was released shortly thereafter. The 1996 release was a critical success and the 22-year-old Peyroux found herself opening for Nina Simone, pop-singer Sarah McLachlan, and performing at music festivals around the world.
Instead of diving headlong into superstardom, Peyroux retreated to the small clubs and even the street performances of her youth. It was eight more years before she released her second album, Careless Love, which, since its release in 2004, has gone gold in France, the UK and Australia and is on that path in the United States.
Check out this week's Piano Jazz Shorts: the Piano Jazz podcast.
Subscribe!
Set List for Madeleine Peyroux on Piano Jazz: