aaamusic | On 21, Oct 2012

Acclaimed Stockport jazz and cabaret singer Barb Jungr is a well known and versatile interpreter of songs. She also introduces soul and blues into her stunning live performances.
Compared with Nina Simone and Peggy Lee, she’s received two prestigious New York awards.

Stockport To Memphis is produced by pianist Simon Wallace and released on 22nd October, 2012 on the Naim Jazz label. It’s a metaphorical journey taken from Barb’s home town to an extremely famous musical one and includes five of her own numbers plus new arrangements of songs by Sam Cooke, Neil Young, Mike Scott, Tom Waits, Rod Argent, Hank Williams, Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell.

There’s individuality and great passion to the opening number Stockport To Memphis. Sam Cooke’s moving Change Is Gonna Come is a soft and slow piano ballad with a soulful harmonica. River, the Joni Mitchell classic, is strong and jazzy and Neil Young’s Old Man is reinvented with some higher notes. Optimistic New Life, backed by a piano and trumpet, tells of her pride in her émigré father who settled in the UK during hard times.

Urban Fox , inspired by a late night encounter with the creature, is a simple song which also uses her talents as an accomplished children’s story writer. Lovers of Bob Dylan’s Lay Lady Lay will, again, find an arrangement that’s very different from the original. Sunset To Break Your Heart creates fine imagery from of the Isle of Skye and Tom Waite’s Way Down In The Hole, is beautifully atmospheric.

Barb is an original international recording artist with a radical approach to transforming songs. She sings with great clarity and natural charm. This is an album of integrity which entertains with a gentle classiness.

Track List: Stockport To Memphis, Change Is Gonna Come, River ,Old Man, New Life, Urban Fox, She’s Not There, Fisherman’s Blues, Lay Lady Lay, Sunset To Break Your Heart,Till My Broken Heart Begins To Mend, Lost on the River,Way Down in the Hole.

★★★★★

Anthony Weightman