The deluxe reissue of Madeleine Peyroux’s highly acclaimed 2004 album Careless Love features a previously unreleased live recording captured more than 15 years ago.
Peyroux first made her mark on the jazz world with her debut album Dreamland in 1996, her dusky voice earning comparisons to Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald. But the extensive touring that followed took its toll on her voice, and the new star vocalist soon went into “hibernation.”
After several more ups and downs as she attempted to return to music in the early 2000s, Peyroux signed a new record deal and embarked on a game-changing, lifelong collaboration with Grammy-winning producer Larry Klein, beginning with Careless Love in 2004.
For Careless Love, the singer covered songs by Bob Dylan, James P Johnson, Elliot Smith, Hank Williams, Leonard Cohen and more — among her signature songs being Cohen’s Dance Me to the End of Love — along with others made famous by Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday and Josephine Baker and one original song, Don’t Wait Too Long.
Selling more than 500,000 copies in its first year, reaching No. 2 on Billboard’s jazz chart and eventually going platinum, the album catapulted Peyroux from the jazz scene into the mainstream.
Now, the expanded version of Careless Love includes a never-before-heard live performance, captured in full, at 2005’s Festival de Jazz de Vitoria-Gasteiz in Spain.
Both of the new physical editions — a two-CD set and a three-LP vinyl set — also include recently unearthed photos and new liner notes written by Grammy-winning journalist Ashley Kahn.
“Peyroux herself is in top, mature form on Careless Love,” Kahn writes in the liner notes, “an apotheosis of that hushed, one-to-one affect she inherited from the likes of Billie Holiday, a stylistic bequest. By 2004, her way of conveying confessional expression was truly her own. She had developed an updated rhythmic pliability and an emotional depth that could explore the complexities lying beneath the surface of the songs.”
Peyroux is currently on tour celebrating the deluxe release. It’s the first time she has played the album front to back. Dates run through the end of November and continue in 2022 with shows across the U.S., Canada, Europe, the U.K. and Ireland.
“You can hear how much fun we’re having, and the people sound really happy,” Peyroux tells uDiscoverMusic about the newly released live set in Spain. “I think I was pretty nervous, playing in such a prestigious festival in one of these daunting, historic-looking places that was so large. At the time, a venue holding 2,000 was a lot for me. I can’t tell you how grateful I am that we found this recording. For me, it represents the way I understood these songs at that time, how I was making music when I made Careless Love. It’s been more than 15 years since that record came out, and I don’t think I’ve done a single concert that didn’t include at least two or three songs from it, and sometimes more. I think I’ve sung Dance Me to the End of Love at every show. It’s part of me now.”
Here’s the track listing:
Disc 1
- Dance Me to the End of Love
- Don’t Wait Too Long
- Don’t Cry Baby
- You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go
- Between the Bars
- No More
- Lonesome Road
- J’ai Deux Amours
- Weary Blues
- I’ll Look Around
- Careless Love
- This Is Heaven to Me
Disc 2
- Dance Me to the End of Love (Live)
- Don’t Cry Baby (Live)
- Don’t Wait Too Long (Live)
- You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go (Live)
- Between the Bars (Live)
- J’ai Deux Amours (Live)
- Walking After Midnight (Live)
- No More (Live)
- Lonesome Road (Live)
- I Hear Music (Live)
- I’ll Look Around (Live)
- Careless Love (Live)
- Destination Moon (Live)
- This is Heaven to Me (Live)
The digital version of Careless Love‘s deluxe edition is available now, while physical copies ship Sept. 17 via Craft Recordings.