Madeleine Peyroux – let’s Walk (Vinyl)

“Let us advance our mortal bodies up Where hearts and minds will go Let’s walk, let’s roll.” So sings Madeleine Peyroux on the upbeat title track of her captivating tenth album, Let’s Walk, the acclaimed singer-songwriter’s most assured, courageous work to date. Powered by the distinctive, honeyed croon that delivered her from the Paris streets to concert halls, these ten unabashedly personal songs, all co-written by the versatile Peyroux, deftly interweave jazz, folk, and chamber pop, with themes ranging from the confessional to the political, from whimsy to yearning. In every note, Peyroux digs deep, rendering this exquisite work with the disarming grace and gravitas of an artist in peak form.

Let’s Walk was a long time coming, but well worth the wait. Following Peyroux’s 2018 album, Anthem, the enforced isolation of the global pandemic made any real-time community gathering impossible. From a creative standpoint, however, Covid offered Peyroux a silver lining: she seized the opportunity to hunker down with longtime collaborator, multi-instrumentalist Jon Herington (Steely Dan, Lucy Kaplansky). The pair reflected on the seismic era at hand and wrote and re-wrote in what Peyroux calls “a shadow of reckoning.” When multi-Emmy-and-Grammy-winning producer Elliott Scheiner (Fleetwood Mac, The Eagles) heard a sampling of the new material, including “Let’s Walk,” he mandated “no covers” for the album. The longtime studio veteran knew the time was ripe to highlight Peyroux’s incisive, often topical lyrics meshed with Herington’s ear for melody and arrangements. Album opener “Find True Love” came to Peyroux during the George Floyd murder trial. Like “Let’s Walk,” “Find True Love” is an irresistible entreaty to join a journey. First stop: New Orleans. “I was searching for solace in the American landscape,” Peyroux says. “I was imagining the first step toward healing, if there could be a future worth living for.” The last line of each verse is a striking, yet inarguable Cornel West quote: “[One must] learn how to die.” Herington’s pulsing, finger-picked acoustic guitar, interwoven with Andy Ezrin’s shimmering keys, propel Peyroux’s message of steadfast hope in the face of encroaching darkness. Says Peyroux: “The ideas in this song let me imagine a place where I can become a better me.” An astonished Peyroux says the title track came to her in a dream – including “the words, the rhythm, and the form” – a rarity for her. “The lyric refers to mass mobilization of marchers for civil rights around the world,” Peyroux says. “A voluntarily unified action in support of a humanitarian ideology.” Within two days, Herington fleshed out “Let’s Walk” with gospel textures, organ, and a steady, infectious beat, enlisting buoyant harmonies from Grammy-winning artist Catherine Russell (David Bowie, Rosanne Cash), along with vocalists supreme Cindy Mizelle (Bruce Springsteen) and Keith Fluitt (Patti LaBelle, Michael Jackson). Their churchy call-and-response with Peyr