Must we all be tossed on our nation's cross/Before the truth is whole/Oh my lost American soul.

From 'How I Wish'

Unveiling a few songs at the Karma Soho Sanctum in London last night, singer-songwriter Madeleine Peyroux - performing with Steely Dan guitarist Jon Herington - launched Let's Walk, Peyroux's first album in six years, at an intimate industry get together in Soho ahead of her big Barbican show this summer.

The video for 'Showman Dan' issued with the song gives a glimpse of performance footage, home movies and personal photos in Dan's honour with a young, yet-to-be-discovered Peyroux in the frame.

Memories of Peyroux's longtime friend and mentor Daniel William Fitzgerald - the Showman Dan of the title, who passed away in 2017 - personalises the album with memories of him in keeping with the singer's sometimes nostalgic, maudlin, vintage style delivered with her trademark salty ache, bittersweet tones and bluesy connotations.

The Lost Wandering Blues and Jazz Band led by Fitzgerald toured widely. Peyroux has said recalling this time in her life: ''We met in Paris, France in 1989. He lived on a barge outside of the city, full of hats and coats, art pieces made from found objects, a pump organ, guitars, espresso pots, a dentist chair, lamps made from the bottom halves of mannequins, a portrait of Big Maybelle, photos of friends, and of course people: everyone was welcome to stay on the boat if they needed to. I was homeless and penniless and difficult and a child and arrogant and a budding alcoholic. He took me in. He gave me a job and a home and a second family. He sang and taught the music of Bessie Smith, Jimmy Reed, Fats Waller, Billie Holiday, and so many others.”

Playing the basement of the hotel on Warwick Street on a small acoustic guitar with Herington on electric also providing backing vocals - especially on the call and response of the doo-wop flavoured title track 'Let's Walk' - with whom the Athens, Georgia-born singer co-wrote the songs - Maddy, as Herington referred to her, told the audience later, responding to questions, how she found ''freedom in the street'' - although she prefers a more comfortable bed these days.

She answered questions after unveiling the songs to the gathering of industry folk who included famed music journalist and publicist Barbara Charone and ex-Newsnight reporter, The Guardian's Robin Denselow.

Her strongest material in simply years, Peyroux, 50, who rocketed to crossover jazz acclaim out of nowhere with her vintage bluesy style in the 1990s with Atlantic album Dreamland and later even more profile and sales in 2004 with the Larry Klein-produced Careless Love, the best of the new songs was easily 'Showman Dan' and the hard-hitting sociopolitically inspired very poetic meditation, 'How I Wish' which is like a parable of post George Floyd modern day America when we are ''yet to hear freedom ring'' - the great desire of Martin Luther King and the world - as the US enters a deeply perilous presidential election countdown. Report & pics: Stephen Graham

Let's Walk is issued by Thirty Tigers on 28 June. Peyroux plays the Barbican's Summer Jazz Series on 21 July