Dance Me to the End of Love
As a young teenager Madeleine Peyroux moved with her mother from
the United States to Paris where she soon began singing with street
musicians, and absorbing many disparate musical influences. When
she first burst onto the recording scene in 1996, with her stunning
debut album Dreamland, Peyroux was greeted with a torrent of gushing
reviews. Most raved about her smoke-and-whiskey vocals, often
comparing her to the late, great Billie Holiday. Others wondered how
someone so young could perform classic songs by Holiday, Bessie
Smith and Patsy Cline so convincingly as to make them sound like her
own. Time magazine pronounced the groundbreaking Dreamland “the
most exciting, involving vocal performance by a new singer this year.”
Her Rounder debut came in 2004 with the release of Careless Love.
That album became an international best seller, selling more than a
million copies worldwide. In 2006 she released Half the Perfect
World, which served as both complement and counterpoint to its
predecessor. Where much of her earlier recordings drew on writers
and singers from the first half of the twentieth century, the bulk of
Half the Perfect World focused on more contemporary artists
including Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits, Fred Neil and Joni Mitchell.
In 2009 Peyroux achieved a lifelong dream by releasing an album of
all original songs - the revealing and highly personal Bare Bones. The
album is both an extension of the currents of Careless Love and Half
the Perfect World and a bold step into previously unexplored psycho-
logical terrain. While on tour in support of Bare Bones, Madeleine
filmed a concert in Los Angeles which was released on DVD in the fall
of 2009. It containsover 90minutes of intimate performance, shot in
HD with 5.1 surround sound. Taken all together, Madeleine
Peyroux’s recordings reveal an artist at the top of her game,
constantly evolving while exploring all that blues, jazz, pop, and folk
music have to offer. And so it is with great pleasure that we present
two songs from that magical evening in Los Angeles as part of our 40th
Dance Me to the End of Love
Don’t Wait Too Long
Madeleine Peyroux - guitar and vocals
Jim Beard - piano
Lisa Germano - violin
Larry Klein- bass
Dean Parks - guitar
Joey Waronker - drums
Sam Yahel – organ
Recorded at SRO in Los Angeles, CA. January 24th, 2009