Rickie Lee Jones and Madeleine Peyroux to Perform at Mayo Center This March

Rickie Lee Jones and Madeleine Peyroux come to Mayo Performing Arts Center on Monday, March 6, 2017 at 7:30 pm. Tickets are $29 - $69.

Two-time Grammy winner Rickie Lee Jones exploded onto the pop scene in 1978 and has made a career of fearlessly experimenting with her sound and persona over 15 critically acclaimed albums. A cultural phenomenon, Rolling Stone magazine put her on its cover twice in two years, and Saturday Night Live gave her an unprecedented three songs for her second appearance. Rickie is both a character in the songs and the songwriter singing, defying convention with her sometimes brazen sexuality and The Mixed Bag of jazz, rock and what has come to be known as 'confessional' songwriter performances.

Her latest album The Other Side of Desire was written, recorded and rooted in the city of New Orleans, where Jones lives on the opposite side of the street made famous by Tennessee Williams. Produced by John Porter (of Roxy Music) and Mark Howard, this is the first new music Jones has written in over a decade.

"This work is inspired by many years of sitting with all the events of my life until I had something to paint with," says Rickie. "I came to New Orleans to write and to live a different way than what I have known in on the west coast.. Here is another record then, made of my imagination, and whatever else that has no words, using the clay of this place and the shapes of my eyes to form some kind of picture of my life, or my heart, that I alone can understand, and hopefully that others can enjoy."

Peyroux, whose voice has often been compared to that of Billie Holiday's, was discovered while in her early twenties, when Beauvais spotted her at a New York club. He recalls the worldly singer's set to be "some of the most exciting, viscerally moving minutes of my music-listening life." Beauvais subsequently signed Peyroux to Atlantic and co-produced her 1996 debut Dreamland.

Prior to this life-changing performance, the American-born Peyroux was a musician on the streets of Paris. A precocious teenager, living abroad with her mother, Madeleine quickly became entranced with local buskers, spending much of her time accompanying a regular band on the sidewalks of the Latin Quarter with her distinctive voice, and, by 15, had dropped out of school to join a touring blues and jazz band.

Following the whirlwind release and promotion of the critically acclaimed Dreamland, the 22-year old Peyroux disappeared from the limelight, just as the buzz surrounding the singer was at its peak. Health issues were partly to blame, but the pressures of a quick rise to stardom in the jazz world became overwhelming. Peyroux took time to find herself, and, in doing so, returned to her first love of busking.

When she finally felt ready to return to the studio, Madeleine was paired with renowned producer Larry Klein (Joni Mitchell, Tracy Chapman, Herbie Hancock) - a match that would prove to be a successful one, stretching over several, subsequent albums. The result was 2004's Careless Love (Rounder) - a diverse collection of covers penned by everyone from Elliott Smith to Hank Williams. Breakout track "Don't Wait Too Long" helped push Madeleine into the mainstream by topping the jazz charts and appearing in national commercial spots and film soundtracks.

Peyroux followed the success of Careless Love with 2006's highly anticipated Half the Perfect World (Rounder). The singer-songwriter once again paired original material ("I'm All Right," among them) with an eclectic selection of covers (paying homage to the likes of Joni Mitchell, Tom Waits and Serge Gainsbourg). 2009's Bare Bones (Rounder) shook up the prototype, and featured all original compositions by Peyroux, including the likes of the upbeat and twangy "Instead." Continuing her artistic growth, Madeleine released Standing on the Rooftop - her debut with Decca Records - with a new producer, GRAMMY Award-winning Craig Street (John Legend, k.d. lang, Norah Jones).

Peyroux's most recent recording project, 2013's The Blue Room (Decca), found the singer-songwriter once again teaming up with Larry Klein, and paying homage to Ray Charles' classic 1962 LP, Modern Sounds in Country Western Music. Covering a handful of Charles' songs from the album, and adding such fitting tracks as Randy Newman's "Guilty" and Warren Zevon's "Desperadoes Under the Eaves," Peyroux melded multiple genres, creating an album that floated in the ether between jazz, country, blues and pop.

For more information on Rickie Lee Jones, visit www.rickieleejones.com and www.youtube.com/user/rickieljonesofficial. For more information on Madeleine Peyroux, go to madeleinepeyroux.com.

Mayo Performing Arts Center, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, presents a wide range of programs that entertain, enrich, and educate the diverse population of the region and enhance the economic vitality of Northern New Jersey. The 2016-2017 season is made possible, in part, by a grant the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as support received from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, F.M. Kirby Foundation and numerous corporations, foundations and individuals. The Mayo Performing Arts Center has been designated a Major Presenting Organization by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. Mayo Performing Arts Center has been named 2016 Outstanding Historic Theatre by the League of Historic American Theatres.

Mayo Performing Arts Center is located at 100 South St., Morristown, NJ 07960. Contact the box office at (973) 539-8008 or go online at www.mayoarts.org. All Programs Subject to Change.

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