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Madeleine Peyroux has proved to be an uncannily insightful interpreter with her consistently impeccable choice of material. Peyroux’s new album, The Blue Room, sees the genre-blending singer reworking some landmark musical gems, in a repeat collaboration with longtime producer Larry Klein (Joni Mitchell, Walter Becker, Tracy Chapman, Herbie Hancock). The Blue Room started life as Klein’s re-examination of Ray Charles’s classic Modern Sounds In Country And Western Music but soon moved away from being strictly an homage to that album. So, alongside tunes such as “Bye Bye Love,” “Born To Lose,” “You Don’t Know Me” and the anthemic “I Can’t Stop Loving You” are Randy Newman’s “Guilty,” Warren Zevon’s “Desperadoes Under The Eaves,” John Hartford’s “Gentle On My Mind,” and Leonard Cohen’s “Bird on a Wire.” Much like Charles, who in 1962 jelled R&B, gospel, country and jazz, The Blue Room is at a nexus of styles, blending jazz, blues, country and pop. The sometimes eerie, often sparse arrangements prove the perfect canvas for Peyroux’s musical palette and seem to effortlessly blend with her voice.
