Madeleine Peyroux

Known for her dusky tones, timeless persona, and unique blend of New and Old World sensibilities, singer/songwriter Madeleine Peyroux was born in Athens, Georgia, in 1974, and discovered her musical calling as a teenaged busker on the streets of Paris. Peyroux approached jazz and blues from an outsider's perspective on her 1996 debut, Dreamland, on which she covers Billie Holiday (whose vocal style she can eerily recall), Bessie Smith, and Fats Waller. Despite almost quitting music soon after, she found a sympathetic producer in Larry Klein and in 2004 released her quintessential, Gold-certified Careless Love, a collection of quasi-standards by Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, and Hank Williams. Peyroux demonstrated serious writing chops of her own on 2019's Anthem, which wrestled with her political fears during the Trump era. Intermittent returns to the continent—including interpretations of Edith Piaf standards and an enchanting version of Serge Gainsbourg's "La Javanaise" for the 2017 film The Shape of Water—suggest that, as an artist at least, Peyroux will always have Paris.