I once interviewed Faye Dunaway and she made a comment that always stuck with me. Reflecting on the acting profession, she said, "This is a very tough playing field to stay on." Her observation came to mind the other day when I was musing on the fragility of girl singers. What I mean by fragility is that they seem to have a way of disappearing! Tanita Tikaram, Lene Lovich, Lori Carson, Sade, Sheila Nichols, Julia Fordham, Jennifer Warnes, Toni Childs, Paula Cole -- there's an endless parade of female singers who've raced through the sky like beautiful comets and left us wondering where the hell they went. For every Emmylou Harris, Joni Mitchell or Madonna -- artists who got their foot in the door and kept it there -- there are dozens more women musicians who've wandered off into the ether. At the moment there are a handful of young female musicians doing work that's nothing less than inspired, and we can only hope that tremendous talents like Beth Orton, Shelby Lynne, and Nelly McKay stick around for the long haul.
The most exotic bloom in this current musical bouquet is the divine Madeleine Peyroux. Lets get it out of the way and say up front that yes, she sounds a lot like Billie Holiday. Peyroux's never denied that, and she acknowledges the influence in choosing to cover Holiday's song, "Getting Some Fun Out of Life." Peyroux's got a lot more going on than her resemblance to Lady Day, however. For starters, she can write -- Peyroux penned "Don't Wait Too Long," one of the best songs on her current album, Careless Love. She has impeccable taste in material and -- most importantly -- she's a breathtakingly original interpretive vocalist. Take the Bob Dylan song "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go." Who knew this song had such an exquisitely wistful melody buried within it? That it was solidly built enough to be a standard? It's as if Peyroux's released a sweet little songbird from a cage with her interpretation of a tune I'd previously dismissed as one of Dylan's lesser efforts. She transforms Leonard Cohen's stately waltz, "Dance Me To The End Of Love," into something sexy and flirtatious, and infuses Hank Williams' "Weary Blues" with a quality of bittersweet regret worthy of Edith Piaf. It comes as no surprise to learn that Peyroux, who was born in the American South, earned her stripes as a musician busking on the streets of Paris; the French chanteuse tradition has clearly been important to her.
Some of the more churlish members of the music press have accused Peyroux of operating in a time warp, but she samples Nino Rota on the closing track, "This is Heaven to Me." How hip is that?! Those of us who love her music should remember that Peyroux has vanishing-act tendencies of her own. Nine years elapsed between the release of her debut album, Dreamland, and her latest one. So let's all behave ourselves and give her music the support it so richly deserves, lest she go away again.
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