Single Review: Last Orders Mersey Square (Barb Jungr)

Barb Jungr is such an inspired singer of the songs of others - bringing fresh energy and new perspectives to material both well and lesser-known - that her own accomplishments as a lyricist are sometimes under-celebrated. In fact, from her earliest Three Courgettes and Jungr and Parker days to her recent successful forays into musical theatre, Jungr has always written - usually in collaboration with other musicians or arrangers. Original compositions have appeared on many of her solo albums, including 2016's Shelter From the Storm, on which self-penned songs sat snugly alongside writing by Dylan, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Springsteen and Bowie. 

Reviewing that record at the time I wondered when Jungr might put "Last Orders Mersey Square" on an album. It's a song I first heard her perform during a gig at Crazy Coqs the previous year. Written with Simon Wallace for the 2012 Stockport to Memphis collection but ultimately not included on the album, the song went straight to the heart in live performance, but no official recorded version has ever been available.

Until now, that is  - it's released as a single this week on 31st October. Following  her second album combining Dylan and Cohen material, Hallelujah on Desolation Row, and her striking version of Jimmy Webb's great "MacArthur Park," this is Jungr's third release this year, and it's a beauty. Recorded at Wallace's studio, with him producing and playing all instruments, the track retains all of the emotion of my memory of the live performance. 

Memory is key to the song itself, in fact. Jungr describes the track as "a love letter to the Stockport I love, the Stockport of old mill towers, canals and famous rivers, of red brick terraces and looming moors." With elegant economy, Jungr's lyrics sketch memories of a youthful love affair in a northern town where "[y]ou could smell the hops across the valley when they brewed the beer" and where "in the pubs we smoked and kissed/We drank our youth like the morning mist." 

There's wry humour in the reminiscence - "For the long and lazy summer we were lovers with no plan/ In the end it rained the rain of ages on our caravan" - but mostly a deep affection and romance, the nostalgic imagery accentuated by the embracing warmth of Jungr's vocal and the tenderness of Wallace's piano-playing which sparkles and shimmers into a gorgeous chorus, where Jungr recalls the ringing of the 'closing time' bell mingling with the "strains of 'Layla' from the jukebox in the smoky air." 

The track conveys a poignant sense of time passing - of the sun setting, of Summer giving way to Autumn - and of youthful experience as fleeting but intense and savoured, the memory of a place indelibly interwoven with the memory of a person. What a treat to finally be able to return again and again to this wonderful song, one of Jungr's very best. 

"Last Orders Mersey Square" is available from 31 October. Link to pre-save here. 

Concert Review: Barb Jungr - Singing into My Seventies (Crazy Coqs, May 2024)

Barb Jungr
(Photo by Steve Ullathorne)

It's not everyone who'd necessarily opt to celebrate their 70th birthday by performing a trio of shows - each one made up of completely different, challenging musical material drawing on a repertoire of about 40 years.

But if there's one thing we know about Barb Jungr by now it's that she doesn't take expected routes. So that's exactly how Jungr spent her 70th - with a three night residency at one of her favourite venues, Soho's Crazy Coqs, accompanied at each show by a different long-time collaborator on piano.  

The first show on 9th May (Jungr's birthday night itself) found Jenny Carr joining to perform a set titled Dark Love: Elvis, Chanson & More. The 10th May show presented Jungr alongside Simon Wallace with a Dylan-centred programme, while the final night saw John McDaniel re-teaming with Jungr on a set revisiting their beautiful collections of work by The Beatles and Sting.

I was only able to make it to the 9th May performance, but have seen Jungr in concert many times since 2015 and it's always a unique, profound and exhilarating experience. She is, without a doubt, one of the greatest of contemporary singers: her supple voice, always exceptionally expressive but undiminished and deepened with the years, is able to dig into a dazzling range of material to find new and surprising qualities. And she's no slouch as a songwriter herself, either. 

But live she's even more than that: a great mover (in the sense of giving a vivid physical life to each song), and a spontaneous, hilarious and often subversive story-teller. At a Jungr show, you never quite know where the between-song chat will go: "I was obsessed with the Gothic nature of swamps," was one of the gems she shared this time around. But what might initially seem to be a non-sequitur always ends up adding to the texture of the song she's about to perform. Movement, gestures, delivery, chat - for Jungr, it's always about serving the story of the song in the most expressive way. 

Barb Jungr
(Photo by Steve Ullathorne)

With only one Jacques Brel piece, "The Tender Hearts," featured, the 9th May show didn't exactly adhere to its title - a case of 'its my birthday and I'll shake up the set-list if I want to', perhaps. But it was a rich and glorious evening nonetheless. Jungr opened with a punchy "Last Train to Clarksville," placing the song in a Vietnam context that I for one had never been aware of. As the evening progressed, connections between the  songs emerged, whether by theme - loss and separation were big - or by specific imagery: trains pulling out of stations, walking, rain. "It does get cheerful in a bit," she deadpanned at one point. 

With Carr's brilliant piano-playing as a by turns delicate and dramatic accompaniment, highlights included a pair of Elvis songs, drawn from Jungr's often wonderfully weird and spooky 2005 Love Me Tender album, a deeply moving "In the Ghetto" and "Kentucky Rain." With Jungr's delivery morphing from gossipy confidence to a preacher's declamation, the rendition of  Dylan's "The Man in the Long Black Coat" was staggering. And so, in an entirely different way, was "Au Depart," an extraordinary piece of writing by Robb Johnson that conjures a world of history, absence, loss, leave-taking and starting over through its economical images. With Johnson himself in the audience, Jungr performed the song with a captivating stillness that made each word pierce the listener. 

Jungr placed "Au Depart" in the context of the post-war refugee experience of her Czech father. This was one example of the resonant way she wove personal stories through some of the songs, from teenage Stockport memories to a traumatic visit to the eye hospital with her beloved mother (who sadly passed away just before Christmas last year) to her joy at getting a dog (Bambi, from Hungary). The latter relationship was celebrated via a rendition of Cat Stevens' "I Love My Dog," a warm performance of the song and a wry deconstruction of it at the same time. 

Indeed, when the evening did "get cheerful" it was with that infectious, soul-enhancing energy that's one of Jungr's essential qualities as an artist. She expresses a sheer joy in communicating with an audience that's often sadly absent from performers half her age.  A glorious take on Jeff Barry's "Walking in the Sun" and a singalong "Forever Young" were irresistible.  Carr led the crowd in a chorus of "Happy Birthday" before Jungr's rollicking version of "Walking in Memphis" sent us out of the club on an exultant high. 

From Ella to Emmylou, June Tabor to Joan Baez, Jungr joins the many female artists who've continued to perform dynamically in their later years, blowing apart pervasive ageist and sexist assumptions in the process. "I couldn't think of anything I'd rather be doing than singing tonight," Jungr said. A more vibrant and vital artist than ever - listen to last year's blistering My Marquee album for recorded proof - may she continue to do so for many more years to come. 

Song Preview: "Dancing in the Dark", Barb Jungr & Simon Wallace (Kristalyn Records, 2020)

The first song I ever heard Barb Jungr sing was by Bruce Springsteen: a version of "The River" that had so much intimacy, feeling and understated dramatic power that I was immediately captivated. This was February 2015 and a few days later, on Valentine's Day, I reviewed Jungr in concert for the first time. In the Southbank Centre's Purcell Room, accompanied by Simon Wallace on piano and Davide Mantovani on bass, Jungr delivered a supreme set of love-themed songs that ranged from the Isley Brothers' "This Old Heart of Mine (Is Weak for You)" through Dylan's "I Want You" to Tom Rush's "No Regrets." It was a transcendent evening, and a perfect introduction to the artistry of one of the greatest, most dynamic and original performers that we have. 

I've seen Jungr in concert many times since then, with programmes dedicated to Nina Simone, Dylan and Cohen, The Beatles, and Sting, among others. The last time was at the premiere of her superb Brel/Dylan/self-penned collection Bob, Brel & Me, which featured a spectacular appearance by The Fourth Choir on "If We Only Had Love." Jungr recently re-teamed with the Choir for a new release, the beautiful "In My Troubled Days," which you can listen to here. 

Now, reuniting with Simon Wallace, Jungr returns to Springsteen's work to deliver a recording of "Dancing in the Dark" that was developed and recorded in lockdown. For Jungr, the song itself now speaks to that experience and to the uncertainty of the future: "For all of us in music and live performing arts, the news is grim. It made me think about how we are all waiting to see what might happen, and how we are all, wherever we are, Dancing in the Dark." 

As with "The River," Wallace's delicate piano, bass and cello arrangement provides an intimate musical context, and Jungr's caressing, crystal-clear vocal turns an upbeat rock song into a contemplative ballad: a private expression that connects deeply with the listener. Intimations of stasis, frustration, absurdity and alienation emerge freshly illuminated, and so does their possible redemption. Jungr's voice dances over the title lyrics at the end, repeating the words, an expression of uncertainty turned into a poignant, shared affirmation.

Like "In My Troubled Days," Jungr and Wallace's "Dancing in the Dark" is exquisite: a balm that we need right now. It also prompts a hopeful anticipation of that future moment - whenever it may be - when we can join together again to hear the song in live performance, in that very special communion that a Jungr show provides. 

"Dancing in the Dark" is available from 26 June. Pre-order here.

Further reading:

What the Song Asks For: An Interview with Barb Jungr

Life of a Song: Dancing in the Dark

Review of 2019: Music - 12 Favourite Albums

"I took a trip, it set me free," lilts Madonna on "Medillin" the delicious duet with Maluma which opens her 14th album Madame X. The record itself offers listeners just such a liberating journey. 2015's Rebel Heart already indicated that Madonna had become interested in making music beyond forgettable floor-fillers again, but relocation to Lisbon fired up the artist in unexpected ways, inspiring an album that's equal parts introspective and expansive, looking out, wonderfully, to the world beyond the States. Combining touches of morna, fado and reggaeton with off-kilter experimenta and the pop bliss of Madonna at her best, Madame X was for me the year's most powerful (and surprising) release. 

Concert Review: Barb Jungr: Bob, Brel & Me (Purcell Room)

My review of Barb Jungr's Bob, Brel & Me show at the Purcell Room is up at PopMatters. You can read it here. 

Concert and CD Review: Float Like a Butterfly: The Songs of Sting (Barb Jungr and John McDaniel) (Kristalyn Records, 2018)

"You consider me the young apprentice," sings Barb Jungr, surveying the crowd with her singular mixture of warmth and challenge as she takes to the stage at Pizza Express Jazz Club, Soho. Immediately, we're drawn into the story. Accompanying Jungr is John McDaniel, the brilliant pianist, singer and arranger with whom Jungr collaborated three years ago on Come Together, a collection of Beatles songs. The opener here is "Wrapped Around Your Finger" by Police, that memorable evocation of master/servant dynamics in a love relationship, which serves as the entry point to the the duo's latest venture: a programme of songs by Sting.

Jungr and McDaniel debuted this material in live performances last year, and the recent Soho show served as a launch for the album of the songs, Float Like a Butterfly, which is available now. It was, to be sure, a revelatory evening. Jungr and McDaniel have been thorough and judicious in their research and selection of material, combining songs from the range of Sting's output - Police work, solo stuff, soundtracks, collaborations and his recent musical The Last Ship - to create a marvellously varied yet cohesive whole.

In a way, taking on Sting songs might be viewed as a riskier project for the duo, since, while the greatness of the Beatles (or Jungr's other frequent touchstones, Dylan and Cohen) is seldom disputed, views on Sting tend to be much more mixed. Still hugely popular, he is nonetheless an artist whose persona has often met with kneejerk derision (especially in the British press); it doesn't take much online searching to find commentators sniping about him as "one of the most narcissistic performers in pop." Jungr alludes to this perspective a little bit in her witty intro, but her and McDaniel's response is to place the focus firmly on Sting's terrific, wide-ranging body of work which they illuminate in striking and sometimes surprising ways, digging deeply into its personal, political and mythological resonances.

Stripping the songs back to piano and voice (with occasional harmonica blasts) the pair have developed fantastic, crisp arrangements that allow the images and melodies to emerge freshly. As such, lyrics that you'd hardly noticed in the original versions are suddenly revealed as the soul of a song, whether it's the take-down of conventional notions of masculinity in the Quentin Crisp portrait "Englishman in New York" ("Takes more than combat gear to make a man/Takes more than a license for a gun"); the opening salvo of "Russians" ("In Europe and America/There's a growing feeling of hysteria..."), updated here with a Putin reference and given a thrilling cabaret strut; the desolation of the imagery in "King of Pain"; or the urgency of the hope for deliverance in "Message in a Bottle." Moreover, Jungr, with her subversive, unpredictable and often hilarious between-songs commentary, finds ways to make the songs personal, prefacing an empathetic "Roxanne" with a recollection of her time working at a knocking shop cloakroom and incorporating a memory of Isle of Skye sublime into a stunning "Fragile."

The album itself conveys all of this and is one of Jungr's most accomplished releases, sustaining an intimate and confiding tone, and testifying to the extent to which her and McDaniel's rapport has deepened. The structure of the album is the same as the show with only "Russians" snipped (shame!). The subtlety of the arrangements, the skill of McDaniel's piano-playing and the intricacy of the harmonies can be savoured, from the withholding of the chorus in "Don't Stand So Close to Me" to create a tense atmosphere that's equal parts seductive and sinister, through the elegant waltz of "Until (A Matter of Moments") (from Kate and Leopold), to the embracing warmth of a dappled, rapt "Fields of Gold" and the jazzy late-night ambience of "Moon Over Bourbon Street." Most extraordinary of all, perhaps, is the reinvention of "Desert Rose," Sting's collaboration with the Algerian singer Cheb Mami. Shorn of the chants and elaborate instrumentation of the original, the piece is revealed in all its crystalline beauty through Jungr and McDaniel's alchemic interplay.

Passionate and controlled, with exquisite phrasing, Jungr has seldom sounded better on record, while McDaniel's elegant, heartfelt leads on "Shape of My Heart" and "August Winds" are also highlights, the latter gaining poignancy from its reinvention here as an expression of gay desire and longing ("In my private moments/I drop the mask that I've been forced to wear..."). "This world is beautiful. Our world is beautiful," Jungr declaims on the added spoken word interlude on "Fragile" (which the record preserves). Humane and restorative, the radiant performances on Float Like a Butterfly offer further proof of that.

Float Like a Butterfly is available for purchase here.

See Jungr and McDaniel Live at Zedel's in October. Details here.

Concert Review: Shelter from the Storm, Barb Jungr, Jamie Safir, Davide Mantovani (The Other Palace, 25th May 2017)

Recorded in a sweltering New York studio in summer 2015, and released early last year, Barb Jungr’s album Shelter from the Storm (Linn Records) [review] was a fine collaboration with the award-winning pianist Laurence Hobgood, the pair’s fresh and vibrant versions of a range of material – showtunes, Dylan and Cohen, Bowie and Mitchell – supplemented by some strong original tracks, all linked, as the album’s subtitle emphasized, as “Songs of Hope for Troubled Times.”

I wasn’t able to see Jungr and Hobgood perform the album live during their tour last year, so was glad to have the opportunity to catch the show at The Other Palace (formerly the St. James Theatre) on Thursday night, where the performance was the third edition in the venue’s new “Jazz Divas” programme.

With the album’s US-based personnel (not only Hobgood, but also Michael Olatuja on double bass and Wilson Torres on percussion) otherwise engaged, Thursday night found Jungr taking to the stage with her regular bassist Davide Mantovani and the young pianist Jamie Safir (fresh off a plane from Mallorca). From the opening “Something’s Coming” through the dynamically shifting rhythms of “Shelter from the Storm” to the penultimate “What the World Needs Now is Love” (hilariously prefaced by Jungr), the musicians proved more than up to the task of navigating Jungr and Hobgood’s idiosyncratic arrangements, often fleshing out the album versions with distinctive flourishes and spontaneous interplay all their own. Mantovani’s  work was characteristically elegant, subtle and supple, and Safir’s playing was a pure delight, by turns passionate and playful, and generating several spontaneous rounds of applause from the audience.

In great voice, Jungr herself was radiant as always, creating a warm and witty ambience for the evening, illuminating songs old and new in revelatory ways. Bruce Springsteen’s “Long Walk Home” was revealed as a beautiful torch song, Jungr leaning hard into the “Who we are, what we’ll do and what we won’t” lyric. “Bali Hai” was approached via Brexit. “Life on Mars?/Space Oddity” was fruitfully developed  from the more skeletal album version, with stunning playing from Mantovani and Safir. “All Along the Watchtower”, with Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” elegantly entwined in its folds, was taut and powerful. Tracks drawn from elsewhere in Jungr’s repertoire – such as her jaunty-deadly jazz strut through Cohen’s “Everybody Knows” and a gospel-influenced, singalong “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door”  to close – were also appreciated. She and Hobgood’s own compositions sat snugly beside this diverse material, with a soulful “Hymn to Nina” and a soaring “Venus Rising” among the standouts.

While even the most talented contemporary songwriters have struggled, so far, to write very profoundly about the US in the Time of Trump, Jungr brilliantly hot-wires us to the present moment by turning the clock back, finding relevant content in older material. Her version of Steve Goodman’s “City of New Orleans” was achingly poignant and deeply moving in this context, its chorus – “Good morning, America, how are you?/Don’t you know me, I’m your native son” – turning gradually into a devastating enquiry from a soul betrayed. Her vibrantly funky take on “Woodstock” also reinvigorates the song as an urgent anthem for our age.  Loving and subversive, witty and engaged, Jungr and her collaborators help us find our way back to the garden.

Further information on the "Jazz Divas" series at The Other Palace here.

CD Review: How Can We Know? EP, Peter Horsfall (2016)

A late highlight of last year’s concert-going, for me, was Barb Jungr’s “Festive Feelings” show at Crazy Coqs, a Christmas concert that combined songs by Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan and George Harrison with Jungr’s customary inventiveness, verve and aplomb. Jungr’s collaborators on this programme were Jenny Carr on piano and Peter Horsfall on trumpet, both of whom also contributed harmonies throughout the evening, while Horsfall also sang a seductive lead on “Moonlight in Vermont” and duetted with Jungr on a funny, combative “Fairytale of New York.”   

It’s pleasing to report, then, that Horsfall has now released his debut EP:  How Can We Know? is a 4-track release of great charm and craft that firmly confirms Horsfall as a talent watch. Already a prolific live performer, and member of London swing group Kansas Smitty’s House Band, Horsfall’s music harks back to 1920s and 1930s-era jazz styles. And, as the Crazy Coqs show demonstrated, he has a knack for delivering songs in a way that makes them sound both classic and fresh. His skilful song-writing, which the EP showcases, possesses precisely those same qualities. With Horsfall’s light, airy vocals accompanied by David Archer on guitar, Joe Webb on piano and Dave O’Brien on bass as well as his own great trumpet-playing, the EP sustains a relaxed, easy, intimate tone.

The title track is a stately and instantly enticing opener that capture’s love’s uncertainties with melancholy charm.  “It’s Not You, It’s Me” swings beautifully, with particularly lovely piano and trumpet work, while the mellow, elegant “This Song’s For You” gracefully wishes a parted lover well. “Cupid’s Arrow’s and Bow”, a co-write with Jungr, is a delight: a brisk, giddy and infectious ode to getting swept up by love that comes complete with a sneaky lyrical homage to Leonard Cohen.  Indeed, each of these carefully-crafted songs gleams like a jewel and sounds like a standard in the making. Here’s hoping for an LP from Horsfall and company very soon.

How Can We Know? is out on   9th September  and can be pre-ordered here. Horsfall launches the EP with a show at Crazy Coqs on 8th September. 

CD Review: Shelter From the Storm, Barb Jungr (Linn Records, 2016)

Barb Jungr’s rich and vibrant new album Shelter From the Storm follows directly in the footsteps of her last, 2014’s highly acclaimed Hard Rain, by taking a Bob Dylan song for its title; in fact, it’s the latest in a series of Jungr albums to pay homage to her favourite songwriter in this way. (2002’s Every Grain of Sand and 2011’s Man in the Long Back Coat, both comprised entirely of Dylan material, and 2008’s Just Like A Woman, dedicated to the repertoire of Nina Simone, are the others.)

However, Jungr’s new release really sets out its stall via its subtitle: “Songs of Hope for Troubled Times.” “[T]his material is all about hope – and dreams – we need so much more of them now,” Jungr explains in the liner notes.  As such, the looser, more relaxed and upbeat Shelter From the Storm is a rather different proposition to Hard Rain which combined “political and philosophical” songs by Dylan and Leonard Cohen to brilliantly intense effect. The contrasting attitude is evident in the albums’ art work aesthetics: where Hard Rain pictured a pensive, sultry-looking Jungr set against a stark black background, Shelter From the Storm’s cover (photographed by Steve Ullathorne) finds the singer radiant and beaming in a verdant garden, eyes aloft and clearly anticipating that something a whole lot more positive than a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.  

Recorded during a sweltering July at Sear Sound studio in New York, Shelter From the Storm is very much a transatlantic project, and finds Jungr teaming up with some exciting new collaborators. This time, she’s joined by the award-winning Laurence Hobgood on piano and keys, Michael Olatuja on double bass and Wilson Torres on percussion. The quartet form a strong and sympathetic unit, as they tackle material that encompasses work by Jungr’s cherished ’60s and ’70s singer-songwriter icons, a pair of musical theatre classics, and several superb new compositions, too.

Each track is given its own highly distinctive identity, yet the album feels entirely cohesive, with Hobgood’s fresh, supple and sometimes boldly idiosyncratic arrangements often stretching the songs into delectable jazz jams. The vibe is spare yet textured; all the material, however familiar, feels new-minted; and there are fresh elements to notice with every play of the disc.

The live arena is, of course, Jungr’s natural habit, the place where, in an intimate cabaret setting, all aspects of her artistry combine through masterful vocal delivery, distinctive gestures and expressions, story-telling, and audience interaction. However, while Jungr’s power as a performer  may be strongly linked to the experience of seeing her live and “in motion”, Shelter From the Storm succeeds in doing justice to her multifaceted musicianship through vocals alone.

That’s nowhere more apparent than on the title track itself, a version which plays with metre and tempo to thrilling effect in order to dynamically capture the shifting emotions and responses of the narrator. Jungr’s vocals move compellingly from stridency to delicacy, the urgent to the languorous, declaiming and cooing in perfect harmony with Hobgood’s protean piano playing.

Cohen’s “Sisters of Mercy” is treated almost as creatively, the song benefiting from a quirky “stop/start” rhythm and closing with Jungr’s gracious repetition of the lyric “We weren’t lovers like that”. A shimmering and funky re-working of “Woodstock” is another highlight, leading one to hope that Jungr will turn her attention to a full programme of Joni Mitchell material one of these days. And there’s no better evidence of Jungr’s elegant iconoclasm than in her seamlessly popping the verses of Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” into a wonderful, taut and dramatic take on Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower.”

The versions of South Pacific’s “Bali Hai” (which opens the album)  and of West Side Story’s “Something’s Coming” are both strong, and perfectly in keeping with the record's themes, but if Jungr’s excursions into musical theatre are a bit less revelatory for me, it’s perhaps because she’s so brilliant at refocusing others’ songs as stories that there’s a little less room for manoeuvre with compositions that already have built-in associations in the pre-existing narrative of a show. 

Jungr’s own compositions, developed in collaboration with Hobgood, are all gleaming gems, though. (I keep hoping that the amazing “Last Orders”, written with Simon Wallace, will turn up on an album sometime but she seems content to leave that as a treat for concert-attendees only.)  The elegant “Stars Lazy But Shining” joins her brilliant “Beautiful Life” as a further celebration of nature’s joys and the pleasures derived from close attention to everyday experience. “Venus Rising” is even better, building from evocative, carefully chosen images to a jubilant finale. And “Hymn to Nina”, a further homage to Simone, is perfectly disarming in its open-hearted candour. “I sing to a heroine of mine,” Jungr intones against Hobgood’s delicate piano. The simple scene-setting detail of “driving from Brighton, rain on my windscreen” beautifully grounds the tribute in the everyday, as Jung celebrates Simone for “bringing soul and song to everything,” and tenderly repeats her name as an incantation at the song's close.   

Which brings us to the album’s closer. (Well, kind of: the download version of the album also includes excellent versions of Springsteen’s “Long Walk Home” and Bacharach’s “What the World Needs Now is Love” as bonus tracks.) Recording David Bowie’s “Life on Mars?” in New York back in July, Jungr could hardly have known that the track would be released a mere month after Bowie’s death. The track’s inclusion here – in a superb arrangement that brings a beguiling fairground quality to the piece and also incorporates lyrics from “Space Oddity” into the song’s folds – is extremely poignant. The song inescapably links back to “Hymn to Nina” in this context, with its reference to “Wild is the Wind”, a composition covered by both Simone and Bowie.  “In the wild wind I hear you calling…”  Jungr sings to Nina, the sentiment extending to Bowie too. “You were here then you were gone/Your word lives on…”

Through her passionate, sensitive and intelligent reinterpretations, Jungr continues to ensure that the work of many artists “lives on” in vibrant and re-energised ways. Building connections across material, making old songs new again, “bringing soul and song to everything,” Shelter From the Storm stands as further testament to Jungr's ever-evolving powers as a performer. Be sure to catch her and Hobgood when they tour the album in the UK in March and April, and in the US in May.     

Shelter from the Storm  is released on Linn Records on February 19th and can be ordered here.  Tour dates here. 

Concert Review: Barb Jungr’s Festive Feelings, Crazy Coqs, 12 December 2015

James Stewart’s George Bailey memorably discovered that “It’s a wonderful life” in Frank Capra’s enduring classic, a film described by Sally Potter as now seeming “positively Marxist in its values.” Although not alluding to the film directly, by putting “Beautiful Life” in their “Festive Feelings” Christmas show, Barb Jungr, Peter Horsfall  and Jenny Carr seemed to make a nod in the direction of Capra’s title.

Written by Jungr and Adrian York, the jazzy, supple “Beautiful Life” came a few songs into the trio’s set at Soho’s great Crazy Coqs club on Saturday night. It was one of those moments – there are usually a number of them in Jungr’s shows – when you feel a shift in the energy of the room: the experience of a deep collective catharsis. At this time of mad consumerism, over-spending, and great waste, Jungr made the song itself into a little anti-capitalist beacon: a vivid celebration of nature’s joys, of what’s free, available and already there to be shared, if we’re open and awake enough to really experience it.  

Always among the most infectiously ebullient and inclusive of performers, Jungr was in especially buoyant mood at Saturday night’s show, clearly relishing the interplay with the packed crowd, and with Carr and Horsfall, the former accompanying her on piano, the latter on trumpet.  Making a few concessions to expected material  via delightfully wry takes on “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”  and “Winter Wonderland”, the set-list was otherwise as inventive as you’d expect - and as delectable - gently expanding the boundaries of what’s classified as Christmas music.

True, some of the featured songs have been presented by Jungr in other contexts. For example, Joni Mitchell's “River” (“this needs a gospel choir – and you’re it”, Jungr reminded us, inspiring the first of several joyous singalongs) formed part of her Stockport to Memphis album and “To Love Somebody” (here rescued from its placing in ITV3's 2015 Christmas ad) was included in her Nina Simone-dedicated shows. 

But these inclusions all emerged new-minted here, with subtle rearrangements, Horsfall’s great trumpet-playing, and some gorgeously quirky, gospel-influenced three-part harmonies supplying wonderful fresh textures.  Moreover, by incorporating material by Mitchell, Dylan and The Beatles (subject of her latest collaboration with John McDaniel), the show emerged as not merely a novelty item but rather as all-of-a-piece with Jungr’s other musical explorations.

As always, Jungr evoked and explored a wide range of human experience in “Festive Feelings”, treating each song as an encapsulated, highly emotional story. No nuance was neglected, no meaning skated over (pardon the pun).The show opened with “Ring Them Bells”, a gem drawn from her beloved Bob’s great 1989 album Oh Mercy, and progressed through a hilariously hammy and spiky “Fairytale of New York” to an exquisite, lusciously deep-toned “Waterloo Sunset.”

An unexpected take on Les Paul and  Mary Ford’s “Vaya con Dios” transported us down Mexico way (“I don’t know about you, but at Christmas I always think about Mexico…” Jungr deadpanned, cheekily justifying the song’s inclusion in the set),  while Horsfall got retro with lovely, warm leads on “Moonlight in Vermont” and “The Christmas Song”. “Peace in the Valley” found Jungr in thrilling gospel mode, hot-wired to the song’s images of transcendence and transformation and beautifully backed by Carr and Horsfall's harmonies. There was even a pleasing nod to Jungr’s years in The Three Courgettes (the group she formed in the '70s with Michael Parker and Jerry Kreeger) via the (inadvertently) double-entendre-strewn “Christmas is Coming.” Finest of all perhaps was “Here Comes the Sun,” which moved gloriously from tentatively-expressed hopefulness to ecstatic affirmation as it welcomed a redemptive thaw.   

From Vermont to Mexico, New York to Waterloo we travelled, then, and the journey made “Festive Feelings” the most delightful of seasonal pick-me-ups. I went into the show at the end of a slightly grim day that had left me a bit dismayed by various factors: London’s grubbiness, the consumerist crush, other people’s demands or distancing. I emerged elated, reminded -  as Jungr’s shows, in their richness and radical humanity, are wont to remind us -  of the many ways in which it’s a beautiful life, after all.    
  

"Festive Feelings" has finished at Crazy Coqs, but you can see the show at Altrincham and at Newbury later this week. Details here.  

Concert Review: Barb Jungr and John McDaniel Perform The Beatles (St. James Studio)

My review of "Come Together: Barb Jungr and John McDaniel Perform The Beatles" is up at PopMatters. You can read it here.

Concert Review: Stockport to Memphis - Barb Jungr, Crazy Coqs, 6th September 2015

Celebrations of Stockport – the Greater Manchester town described in hackneyed terms by Paul Morley as a place of “slumped skies and enclosed air … the town I couldn’t wait to escape from” – can’t be said to be ten a penny. But, never one to take the predictable view, Barb Jungr offered a love letter of sorts to the place that she grew up on her great 2012 album Stockport to Memphis. That record represented something of a departure for Jungr, combining songs by some of her favourite writers – Dylan, Mitchell, Hank Williams, Sam Cooke – with original, deeply personal compositions that reflected on Jungr’s background in Stockport, thereby evoking what the singer believes to be the “special connection” binding the North-West of England and North American coasts.    

At Soho’s wonderful Crazy Coqs club on Sunday night, Jungr (fresh from the recording of her new album and her debuting of a Beatles show in the States and at Edinburgh) revisited Stockport to Memphis in spell-binding fashion with Simon Wallace (co-composer of most of the original songs on the record) on piano and Davide Mantovani on bass. Listening to this trio – and this is the fourth time I’ve seen them on stage in the past year, following their Valentine’s Night show and two City of London Festival gigs – is an unalloyed joy, their wonderful rapport delivering shows that are always reliably confident and accomplished but also always fresh, spontaneous and surprising. The nimbleness with which Jungr, Wallace and Mantovani move through moods, making connections between apparently disparate songs, is simply sublime. Combining the observational humour of a Victoria Wood with the all-out, passionate intensity of an Edith Piaf, Jungr’s performances are totally fulfilling emotional experiences, leaving the audience elated, inspired and, at a profound level, changed.

The set-list for Sunday’s show, the first of a series of Jungr residencies at Crazy Coqs, re-ordered and often subtly re-arranged some of Stockport to Memphis’s songs, adding additional surprises, to boot. Jungr’s years of close attention to, and committed performance of, the work of numerous song-writing greats has clearly had its benefits on her own song-writing, which is evocative, economical, rich in specific detail, yet full of open spaces for the listener. The beautifully constructed “New Life,” referencing both her leaving of Stockport and her parents’ emigration experiences, resonated deeply, gaining even greater poignancy and pertinence in the context of the current refugee crisis. The slinky “Urban Fox” presented an encounter with the titular critter as a reminder of the natural wildness suppressed by gentrified city living. The album’s title track was as punchy and affirmative as the full-band album version, as Jungr joyfully evoked her early musical discoveries and the exciting, still-evolving journey that they set her on.     

Between these songs, Jungr vibrantly interwove material from the album by other writers that complemented the original material beautifully. Highlights included a magnificently aerated, gender- switched version of The Zombies’s “She’s Not There”, a liberating take on Johnny Johnson & The Bandwagon’s “Breakin’ Down the Walls of Heartache” and an achingly beautiful reading of The Waterboys’ “Fisherman’s Blues.” Jungr transformed that boisterous song into the tenderest and most redemptive of ballads, digging deep in to the redemptive sentiments of Scott and Wickham's lyrics: “Tomorrow I will be loosened/ From bonds that hold me fast/The chains all hung around me/Will fall away at last”. Dylan's "Lay Lady Lay" was ingeniously reinvented as a dialogue, and Jungr's delivery of the line "His clothes are dirty but his hands are clean" was especially cherishable. On Cohen’s “Everybody Knows”, Jungr departed the stage and ventured into the crowd, directing the “you’ve been faithful – give or take a night or two” lyric at a (slightly perturbed-looking) audience member.   

There are few more gracious and hospitable artists than Jungr, few who create such an inclusive and loving ambience for the audience. But, like all the best performers, Jungr also keeps a palpable element of unpredictability, of danger – even of punky threat – in the air, ensuring that the evening never gets too cosy. This was nowhere more apparent than on a breathtaking rendition of Tom Waits’s “Way Down in the Hole” which moved from gleaming-eyed parody to visceral emotion as Jungr brilliantly embodied the narrator’s wavering between resistance and capitulation to the Devil’s temptations. She closed the show with Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come”. Deeply moving, and again unavoidably illuminating responses to the current crisis, it was the perfect benediction with which to send us travelling on.

Jungr returns to Crazy Coqs on Oct 4th. Details here. 

Concert Review: Barb Jungr Sings Nina Simone + Hard Rain at ClubTEN (June 23th and 26th, 2015)

My review of Barb Jungr's stunning City of London Festival shows, Barb Jungr Sings Nina Simone and Hard Rain: Songs of Bob Dylan &  Leonard Cohen,  is up at PopMatters. You can read it here.  

Concert Review: Barb Jungr: My Funny Valentine: Songs for the Wild At Heart, Purcell Room (14th February 2015)

A beaming Barb Jungr takes to the Purcell Room stage, looking for all the world like there’s no place she’d rather be on a Saturday evening. And it’s not just any Saturday evening, either: this is February 14^th, Valentine’s Night, no less, and Jungr is here to present an evening of love songs in the Southbank Centre’s most intimate auditorium.  “I don’t generally do whole programmes of love songs,” the singer admitted. “But tonight isn’t all about ‘Ooh, I’m in love, isn’t it lovely, ooh look at my skin, can’t you tell?’ No. We’re not just going to be doing songs about that.”

Such quirky, cheeky banter is central to Jungr’s singular stage persona, which combines playfulness and arresting intensity in equal measure. Fresh from a hugely successful tour (including a two week residency at New York’s 59E59) in support of her acclaimed recent album Hard Rain: The Songs of Bob Dylan & Leonard Cohen , the Rochdale-born, Stockport-raised Jungr was in buoyant form on Saturday night, her stunning vocals and infectious joy in performance combining with the brilliant contributions of her accomplished accompanists Simon Wallace (piano) and Davide Mantovani (bass) to create a delectable, diverse yet complementary set that mixed material by Noel Coward, Jacques Brel, Joni Mitchell, Tom Rush, The Beatles, and Dylan, among many others.   

In a recent PopMatters piece, Robert Balkovich celebrated interpretations of male-authored songs by female performers, showing how singers such as Joan Baez, Judy Collins and Tori Amos  have re-invigorated (and, in Amos’s case, often boldly subverted) the work of male songwriters through creative covers of their compositions. Jungr - who herself disdains the term “cover version”  - certainly belongs in this distinguished company, for no matter what she sings, it all comes out Barb: impassioned, boundary-busting, and a totally personal and idiosyncratic artistic statement.  

A self-described “chansonnier”, Jungr is one of those artists (June Tabor and Marianne Faithfull also spring to mind) who’ve only become more powerful as the years have progressed. And her mix of inspirations – she’s listed Doris Day, Liza Minnelli, Edith Piaf and Vesta Tilley among her icons – is evident in a juicy performance style that combines elements of jazz, torch and art song with cabaret, music hall and even stand-up comedy.    

Vocally superb, and with Wallace and Mantovani providing delicate, subtle textures that give her plenty of space, Jungr uses her whole body in performance, and all of it is expressive, whether she’s crouching, bopping, pointing or otherwise gesticulating through Dylan’s “Tangled Up in Blue” or getting wonderfully strident on Hank Williams’s “Your Cheatin’ Heart”. On “Mad about the Boy”, she’s practically a one-woman Noel Coward play, vamping and flirting to imaginary beaux and following up the line “I can’t afford to waste more time” with a knowing cackle.

Crucially, though, Jungr also knows the value of a more contained style too, and she demonstrated that on Saturday night with a sultry, subtly rearranged “I Love Paris” and - best of all - an absolutely exquisite reading of Dylan’s “I Want You,” slowing the jaunty song to a voluptuous crawl and expressing every ounce of ache and longing in the lyrics. It was one of those transcendent, revelatory moments where one hears a familiar, beloved composition entirely afresh.  And on a stunning “Woman in Love,” Jungr also brilliantly surprised us, wrapping a tender hush around the song in the first half before letting rip in the second to make the track a cathartic, startling (and slightly scary) anthem of intent and self-belief.

Elsewhere, her performances of her own very beautiful “Last Orders”, of Ewan MacColl’s “Sweet Thames, Flow Softly” and of Mitchell’s “Carey” (the latter complete with joyful dance routine) had glorious embracing warmth. And her gift for sequencing showed in the way in which she paired songs, making them into sequels and suites to convey the ups and downs of romantic attachments. Here “Lazy Afternoon” merged brilliantly with Small Faces's “Itchycoo Park”, and Tom Rush’s “No Regrets” was followed by an English-language “Je Ne Regrette Rien”, while a joyous “This Old Heart of Mine (Is Weak For You)” segued straight into a rueful “Love Hurts”.

Steering clear of predictable musical theatre staples (no Sondheim, thankfully), Jungr’s musical affections don’t appear to lie far beyond the late 1970s, and she finds plenty of exciting material in the rock, pop, soul and jazz produced up to that period. Still, she might consider updating her repertoire a touch. As delightful and inventive as her takes on standards such as “My Funny Valentine” (which opened the show) and “What’ll I Do” (which concluded it) undoubtedly are, some engagement with the work of newer songwriters (try Morrissey, Amos, or Richard Shindell, for starters) could be galvanising.

Even so, Jungr never lacks for energy or engagement, whether at full-throttle or just pausing for a moment to close her eyes and sway to an instrumental passage. Cherishing the songs as deeply as she does, she can be as easy and irreverent with them as one can be with a lover, while also ensuring that every single word is heard and felt, ringing true and glowing like coal, to paraphrase her beloved Bob. There’s never a moment when you feel that she’s skating over the meaning of a lyric or is less that fully committed to communicating the song.  Goofy and girlish, wise and womanly, she’s an amazing artist, and she made this particular show a wonderfully vibrant Valentine’s gift.