MADELEINE PEYROUX - LET'S WALK

In a recent interview Madeleine Peyroux shared that though she is not that spiritual outside her music, she really is in her music.

She spoke about a rhythm that she feels in the music as spiritual which fascinated me because from my very first listen to Let's Walk I was  particularly drawn to a sense of subtle groove throughout.

Some of the opening lyrics set up her intentions. On the opening, and immediately hypnotic, Find True Love she sings:

 

Listen to the blues and the gospel of Jesus

Feel the summer sunshine in the southern breezes

 

Jesus for someone not spiritual. In that same interview Peyroux spoke about Jesus. Not the Jesus of the American churches but the Jesus of the Gospels. As someone who preaches in those churches I have a wee smile in my soul that a jazz singer who doesn’t think she’s spiritual has such insight. Preach it sister!

Certainly as a follower of the Jesus in the gospel rather than American churches I can endorse this record as in keeping with such a gospel. Peyroux confesses her love for African- American academic, activist, theologian, Cornel West and his three pillars of truth, justice and love; justice being love lived out in public.

Yes, this is a record review and not only a good one but an album that is very good for lots of reasons. Known for being a brilliant interpreter of songs, think her versions of Dylan, Cohen and Waits and also her albums The Blue Room and Secular Hymns. Let’s Walk is all Peyroux’s own work, all songs written by her along with Jon Herington.

The murder of George Floyd and Black Lives Matter, along with aforementioned Cornel West have certainly informed the record. Looking back to Martin Luther King Jr in Let’s Walk -

 

We'll see 

And we'll know 

We climb the mountainside where seeds were planted oh so long ago

 

With hopefulness in Blues For Heaven -

 

If the world was all inviting and love was always pure 

I'd never have to worry no more
If prospects were exciting and promises true and sure 

I'd never have to worry no more

But then I'd be in heaven 

Wondering what the worry was for

 

And to the future almost prayerfully in How I Wish -

 

Endlessly journeying 

Yet to hear freedom ring 

Must we all be tossed 

On our nation's cross 

Before the Truth is whole 

Oh my lost American soul 

No More”

 

It’s not all national. There’s personal development too and humour sometimes all at once as in Me and the Mosquito - 

 

Every mortal has its myst'ry and surely some redeeming feature 

There is inherent quality to every natural living creature 

But I won't know no doggone rest until I kill this little pest 

No veto when it's me and the mosquito

 

Peyroux delivers all this in that lazy jazzy folk way that she does. It’s intoxicating. It’s meditative. It’s imaginative. All in that gentle spirit rhythm. It’s the most complete work of Peyroux’s 30 year career.