Equipped with a bottle of Chardonnay, an extra dose of Zyrtec D (to kill the allergies) and a warm blanket, I set out to the Greek Theater last night to watch the reincarnation of Billy Holliday ... Madeleine Peyroux. The 22-year-old American who had been living in Paris as a street musician, captured her audience with her sultry, smoke and whiskey vocals while performing original songs from her latest album "Careless Love". With a very simple stage production, the attention was focused on the musical talent on stage consisting of a Trumpet, stand-up-bass, piano and drums while Peyroux (pronounced like the country Peru) played an acoustic jazz guitar. Listening to this

mixture of jazz, blues and swing with my eyes closed and Peyroux's bittersweet, brokenhearted alto;

lingering and sliding off notes, finding emotion in the slow, I swear I was back in the 20's in a smoky bar feeling lonely and sad; sexy, betrayed and solemn - waiting for that man ... that never came. The chill in the air brought me back to the Greek and my Chardonnay....

You might say Peyroux spent much of her recent past out of the public eye, returning to her busking roots with street performances and club dates. Eight years have passed between the release of Dreamland and that of Careless Love.  Waiting that long to release her sophomore album is admittedly not a typical career move, but then Peyroux is not a typical artist. One needs only to listen to Careless Love to understand this.  The album seamlessly weaves strands of acoustic blues, country ballads, torch songs and pop into a vibrant fabric that is both classically vintage and thoroughly up to date.