Blue is more than a color – it is a basic musical form and blue is a mood. Madeleine Peyroux explores all aspects of blue with her new CD The Blue Room. However, this isn’t a blues CD.
Peyroux and producer Larry Klein, known for his landmark association with Joni Mitchell, both appreciated Ray Charles’ classic LPs Modern Sounds In Country and Western Music and brought those songs to the studio for a new interpretation. Spare, sensitive instrumental backing featuring old friend organist and pianist Larry Goldings along with guitarist Dean Parks, bassist David Piltch and deft drummer Jay Bellerose never get in the way of the song’s elemental messages. Madeleine Peyroux never gets in the way either. She takes time to tell the stories well.
She takes you to the places in her heart, be it as a Bird On The Wire (the Leonard Cohen tune) or the seamy underside of Desperadoes Under The Eaves by Warren Zevon. She does not rush through such songs. They are about vulnerable lives. It is that vulnerability that makes Madeleine Peyroux such a convincing singer. With The Blue Room she joins singers Ray Charles, Billie Holiday, Kris Kristofferson and Peggy Lee who transcend genre to communicate the essence of being human in a blue period. We featured I Can’t Stop Loving You and You Don’t Know Me this morning on 89.1 Jazz. In days to come you’ll hear all of Madeleine Peyroux’s blue moods on WEMU.
