近年来崛起流行音乐世界的年轻爵士歌手不少，玛黛琳．蓓荷本应该是最受瞩目的一位。生於美国乔治亚，却因为父母离异而随任职法语教师的母亲移居法国巴黎，蓓荷自小承受著法国艺术文化与美国乡村蓝调的双重洗礼，造就她不凡的艺术品味；蓓荷1996年发行了第一张个人专辑"爵士天地（Dreamland）"，舒缓、清柔的演唱风格，加上她近似爵士第一夫人比莉．哈乐黛（Billie Holiday）的纯情风格，令爵士乐评家为之惊艳。Time杂志就提出了以下的评论："如同比莉．哈乐黛，蓓荷有著同样的心碎中音，她极为聪敏的滑过音符与乐段之间，不经意中流泻深沉的情感..."，这使得她虽有「比莉．哈乐黛接班人」之名，却完全自成一格，不让前辈专美於前。

Vocalist Madeleine Peyroux can best be thought of as a Billie Holiday for the 1990s. Like Holiday, Peyroux was marketed as a jazz singer, when what she seems to do best is sing blues music. Though Peyroux may remind some listeners of Holiday, there are differences, and she has her own sense of phrasing and interpretation. Her 1996 Atlantic Records debut, Dreamland, is a brilliant recording, as Peyroux's distinctive voice is not hindered by overly intricate arrangements. Most of the accompaniment on the record is light and sparse, the way it should be for a singer with such a unique voice. Her debut album features a cast of top players from the New York jazz scene, including pianist Cyrus Chestnut, drummer Leon Parker, guitarists Vernon Reid and Marc Ribot, and saxophonist/clarinetist James Carter.

Peyroux was born in Athens, GA, and raised between Southern California, Brooklyn, and Paris. She began singing at age 15, when she discovered the Latin Quarter in Paris and became enamored with several street musicians. By 1989, she was working with a group of musicians called the Riverboat Shufflers, and after working for a while as a hat passer for the group, she began singing with them. She then joined the Lost Wandering Blues and Jazz Band at age 16, spending the next couple of years touring Europe while holding college in abeyance. That group formed the basis for her first album, for they performed the songs of Fats Waller, Billie Holiday, early Ella Fitzgerald, and others.

Though Dreamland was by no means a straight-ahead jazz album, Peyroux and her producers take a thoroughly modern approach to blues tunes from the 1920s and '30s. She interprets songs like Fats Waller's "I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter," Billie Holiday's "Gettin' Some Fun Out of Life," as well as tunes popularized by Bessie Smith, like "Reckless Blues" and "Lovesick Blues." But unlike Smith or Holiday, who weren't known as songwriters, Peyroux also recorded three of her own tunes on Dreamland, "Always a Use" (on which she accompanies herself on guitar), "Hey Sweet Man," and "Dreamland."

It took another eight years, however (the reasons for which were never very clear), for her follow-up, Careless Love, to hit shelves. This time working with producer Larry Klein on Rounder Records, Peyroux explored a more contemporary and eclectic mix of covers, including Elliott Smith's "Between the Bars," Bob Dylan's "You're Going to Make Me Lonesome," as well as older songs like Hank Williams' "Weary Blues." It was very well received and made the 2006 release of Half the Perfect World, again a combination of covers and originals, highly anticipated. The record, which featured a duet with k.d. lang, included versions of songs by Serge Gainsbourg and Tom Waits, among others.