Madeleine Peyroux's new album "Careless Love" is like a musical marriage. The songs bring together some things old, some things new, some things borrowed, and all things blue. The blueness is what the critics are talking about.
Hearing her for the first time, with her lovely, lilting, slightly behind the beat pacing, you can't help but think you're being haunted by the late great Billie Holiday. And you wouldn't be wrong. Peryroux considers Holiday her emotional and musical inspiration.
But Peyroux goes beyond traditional jazzy fare to include songs by Hank Williams, Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan. The selections are informed by different times and different styles, but somehow under Peyroux's musical spell, they're transformed into a familiar whole.
