Madeleine Peyroux was born in Athens, Georgia and grew up singing on the streets of Paris, where she moved with her French teacher mother. Her voice sounds a bit like Billie Holiday's, but her style is her own. Peyroux's 1996 debut album, "Dreamland," was released on the Atlantic label and drew raves; Time called it "the most exciting, involving vocal performance by a new singer this year." Over half a dozen albums, Peyroux has never given up her classic influences but has moved steadily in the direction of personal songwriting and a distinctive artistic voice. "I have been building on the relationships I developed in co-writing, and something new has taken hold of me," Peyroux says. Her latest album, "The Blue Room," started out as an homage to the Ray Charles "Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music" album and evolved into a deeper meditation on the relationships among jazz, pop, and country music.