When Madeleine Peyroux began working with producer Elliot Scheiner on the songs that would constitute her forthcoming album, “Let’s Walk,” she was given one dictate: no covers.
Peyroux, of course, has made a good part of her reputation as a jazz, folk and pop singer for choosing an eclectic mix of material to interpret, drawing on songs written and/or sung by Patsy Cline, Édith Piaf, Billie Holiday, Leonard Cohen, Hank Williams, Bob Dylan, Elliott Smith and Warren Zevon, among others.
She has written or co-written her own songs as well, but never an entire album — until now.
Peyroux admits that at first, she didn’t understand Scheiner’s demand, but figured, “Well, let’s see what happens.”
She began collaborating with ace guitarist Jon Herington, perhaps best known as Steely Dan’s guitarist for the past couple of decades. Both are New Yorkers, but there was just one thing in the way of their getting together to work: the COVID-19 pandemic.
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By necessity, then, they worked remotely — via Zoom or by sending files back and forth via email.
“It becomes like a dialogue,” Peyroux says. “Sort of like, you send me a phrase, and I sit and think and come back and go, ‘Hey, how about this?’”
Herington turned out to be a terrific writing partner by being very exacting. “Sometimes he was just able to go, ‘Why are you changing that?’” she says. “Or he would say, ‘The melody is really boring. It needs to go up from here. Something needs to happen.’”
Being housebound by the pandemic, Peyroux was able to ruminate on various issues both personal and societal that had taken place since her last album, 2018’s “Anthem.”
“The pandemic is very much part of the catalyst for this record,” she says. “It opened up issues that were in plain sight, but I had not stopped moving to pay attention to a lot of things long enough to feel like I had something to say or do. And then the pandemic made me realize that there really is no other way to live in America today.”
Some — but not by any means all — of the album is undeniably heavy. “I’m talking about societal issues,” she says. “I’m talking about George Floyd being murdered on camera. I’m talking about the truth of our prison system; the magnification of all the inequities that you sort of accept as part of the society, like health care or how close we all are to individual homelessness.
“It’s everything, really. It’s just realizing that, ‘Wow, we’re so lucky. And we’re also very fragile.’”
The album has its lighter side, too, most notably thanks to the title track, a gospel-inflected march that not only calls for hope and unity, but makes it seem like a real possibility.
Peyroux says the lyrics came to her in a dream.
“I woke up with them almost completely written for me,” she says. “I sent it to Jon and I got no response right away, which was unusual. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. But two or three days later, I got this email with an attachment. It was the whole song. He was singing all the parts, playing all the instruments. I called him back crying, and I said, ‘This is perfect.’”
It’s one of a couple of songs on the record that Peyroux says, “were not hard-won. They were just there.”
Elsewhere, Peyroux lightheartedly sings about a mosquito; makes fun of the bougie kids of Paris, who are oblivious of their privilege; reveals what seem like her impossibly exacting standards for food and drink; and pays tribute to a mentor who passed away: Dan William Fitzgerald, a bandleader who showed a young Peyroux the ropes when, decades ago, she busked her way around Europe.
Of writing partner Herington, she says, “You just can’t help but love him. His personality and his persona come right through the music and that’s who he really is. He just loves music, and he’s gotten to this level of musicianship where he’s not boxed in by any particular style. And he knows exactly who he is.”
For her current tour, Peyroux has more than a new album to celebrate. This year also marks the 20th anniversary of her breakthrough album, “Careless Love,” which, quite unlike the new one, is loaded with cover tunes.
There’s no new special edition of the album being released. That was already done a few years ago. But Peyroux says she’ll be breaking out a few of its songs in her show — “the ones that feel like they need to be a part of our show with all this new material.”
She may even have a new cover tune or two to play.
With so many great songs out there to choose from, what draws her to one song or another?
“I have to believe in what it says to a certain extent,” she replies. “It has to be easy enough for me to sing it technically. And it has to have something — some part of it that I feel I can add to. I’m bringing myself to the song.”
She adds with a laugh, “Of course, if you have any suggestions, they’re always welcome.”