leonardcohenforum.com

12 January 2007
EXCLUSIVE: BETTER BY HALF
Exclusive With star fans calling, Madeleine Peyroux can't hide from fame
By John Dingwall
LEGENDARY singer song writer, novelist and poet Leonard Cohen personally thanked Madeleine Peyroux for covering one of his songs.

He was delighted that the 32-year-old jazz singer chose his relatively new song Half The Perfect World on her current album of the same name.

Madeleine said: "I did have the unique experience of hearing from Leonard because I'm an acquaintance of his daughter.

"He said to me: 'Thank you very much for doing my song.' In fact, he said it several times."

Cohen, 72, who ended five years in seclusion as a Zen Buddhist monk in 2001, recently sued his former manager successfully over the loss of $5million from a retirement fund but may never see the cash.

Even so, a windfall of potential royalties from Madeleine's cover had nothing to do with the veteran Canadian contacting the singer, who has herself been described as "reclusive" and "notoriously secretive".

Madeleine, from Athens, Georgia, said: "He handled the court case very well because he went right back out to work and is considering touring again. It's almost sad for me to realise he isn't going to be around for the rest of my lifetime because he seems so young at heart.

"People like Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan and Carole King are still contemporary artists."

Madeleine has been accused of staging disappearing acts during her career but this week I caught up with her.

Having started out busking on the streets of Paris at 15, she makes no apologies for dodging the chance to talk to journalists and media types and going walkies just as fame appears imminent.

Careless Love, released in 2004, was followed by an announcement from her record company that the gifted singer had disappeared again.

Embarrassingly, Madeleine was found hanging out with her manager in New York. She has now admitted for the first time that the whole episode was simply a publicity stunt dreamed up by her label.

She said: "Quite simply I was doing what I had planned to do, which was to go back to New York for a week. The day the news came out online I was hanging out with my manager so I wasn't lost.

"The record company thought it would be a good thing for me to be missing for four days. "They were manipulating the media. I wasn't missing at all."

Meanwhile fans can watch Madeleine's performance at Abbey Road studios as part of a series of Channel 4 broadcasts.

"That day was memorable in so many ways. It flew by," she said. "We were late off a delayed flight and it was a rushed day. It wasn't until the last half hour I was briefed about the studio.

"I assumed we were in a different studio to the one The Beatles recorded in because there was a really swish one next door. It wasn't until the end that I found out it was the same one.

"That was amazing because The Beatles were one of the reasons I became a musician."

Asked which music artists she finds inspiring today, she counts KT Tunstall and kd lang as her favourites.

Madeleine said: "I'd have to say kd lang. She is a fascinating artist for me and I also do like someone who is very contemporary, KT Tunstall.

"I like her songwriting - it is inspiring for me. She's enormous and has really broken through.

"Songwriting is not dead."

Madeleine can be seen on Live From Abbey Road on More4 on February 16 and Channel 4 on February 19.