Madeleine Peyroux Essentials

Singer Madeleine Peyroux has come into her own since dropping her debut album in the mid-'90s, where she evoked the sound of jazz on the Left Bank of Paris. Her wounded warble masterfully channelled Billie Holiday, whether tackling jazz standards, Patsy Cline or Edith Piaf. Since then Peyroux has dramatically widened her exquisitely pitched sound while retaining a seductive vulnerability and an adoration for early jazz, classic French chanson and pre-war Americana. There's an earthy theatricality to her version of Rosetta Tharpe's gospel-flavoured R&B on “Shout Sister Shout”, while she imparts a sleek rusticity to “The Summer Wind”.