Barb Jungr - interesting new album

[cohenadmirer]

I've seen Barb perform a few times - she's very good to catch live and this new album looks good

BARB JUNGR
HARD RAIN

The songs of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen

Album Release Date: 24TH MARCH 2014
Label: Kristalyn Records (Distributed by Absolute via Universal) CD & Download

The UK’s finest interpreter of song, Barb Jungr returns to the songs of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen with the release of Hard Rain. Oft referred to as “the politicised chansonnier” and cited as one of the world’s best performers of Dylan’s material, Barb turns to six of his most politically hard-hitting songs along with five of Leonard Cohen’s most impassioned songs of conscience. Barb’s selection for Hard Rain reflects her despair with the political times that we live in and she has deliberately chosen songs that resonate as strongly today as they did when they were originally written: Blowin’ In The Wind is now 51 years old and its sentiments are as relevant today as they ever were.

Tracklisting:

Blowin’ In The Wind (Bob Dylan)
Everybody Knows (Leonard Cohen and Sharon Robinson)
Who By Fire (Leonard Cohen)
Hard Rain (Bob Dylan)
First We Take Manhattan (Leonard Cohen)
Masters Of War (Bob Dylan)
It’s Alright Ma (Bob Dylan)
1000 Kisses Deep (Leonard Cohen and Sharon Robinson)
Gotta Serve Somebody (Bob Dylan)
Land Of Plenty (Leonard Cohen and Sharon Robinson)
Chimes Of Freedom (Bob Dylan)

The album comes complete with insightful liner notes by writer Liz Thomson, who as Elizabeth Thomson prepared “the director’s cut” of No Direction Home: The Life and Music of Bob Dylan (2014). She was also the co-editor of The Dylan Companion. As a young journalist, her first ever interview was with Leonard Cohen.

All of the arrangements on the album are by Barb and her long-standing collaborator and accompanist, the pianist Simon Wallace, who also produced the album. In addition to Simon (piano, Hammond organ and synthesizers), Barb is also joined by Neville Malcom on bass (with Steve Watts providing bass on tracks 1,3,8 and 10); Gary Hammond (percussion); Clive Bell (Shakahachi) and Richard Olatunde Baker on talking drum and additional percussion. Together with Barb, they inject new life and energy into each song.

Hard Rain will be released on Kristalyn Records on 24th March 2014. The album will be supported by an extensive run of live dates and will be launched with a special premiere performance of this Dylan/Cohen collection at London’s Purcell Room on Friday 14th February before going on tour throughout the UK.

[ninasspacechild]

Hi. I haven't posted here in ages. I hope everyone is well. I don't know if anybody remembers me?

I wanted to post about Barb Jungr's new album which is out in March - Hard Rain, The songs of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. There are 5 Cohen songs on and they are :

Everybody Knows
Who By Fire
First We Take Manhattan
1000 Kisses Deep
Land Of Plenty

I have heard a preview copy of the album and would love to share my thoughts on this and Barb also has an extensive tour of the UK starting in 2 weeks performing these songs with her arranger and pianist, Simon Wallace.

For more info go to the facebook page which is https://www.facebook.com/HardRainBarbJungr or contact me directly here.

Thanks, Dylan.

[jarkko]

I had also added the album to The Files:
http://www.leonardcohenfiles.com/jungr.html

[ninasspacechild]

A film to go with the album release:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tssuy8Y5YrE

[ninasspacechild]

Who By Fire - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8o4-PzHd ... 4-overview

[Kush]

This looks like a great album. I enjoyed the sound and musicianship on the 'The Making of' video and itunes previews. The sound of a guitar on occasion would have been very good , a personal preference.

[ninasspacechild]

You can listen to the album free on Spotify, just enter - Barb Jungr Hard Rain - in the search box. Reviews for this album have been amazing and you can keep up to date if you follow Barb on Twitter and Facebook. Here are some links.

https://www.facebook.com/HardRainBarbJungr

https://www.facebook.com/OfficialBarbJungr?fref=ts

https://twitter.com/BarbJungrSings

[ninasspacechild]

I found this interesting blog yesterday. This is what he has to say about the Leonard Cohen songs.

http://blogcritics.org/music-review-bar ... ard-cohen/

Fine as her Dylan interpretations are, they pale in comparison with what she does with the Cohen songs. It is almost as though he wrote them with Jungr in mind. Her voice is made for them. With “Everybody Knows,” “Who By Fire,” and “First We Take Manhattan,” hearing Jungr is like hearing them for the first time. She finds their drama and revels in it. On “1000 Kisses Deep” and “Land of Plenty,” her readings bring to mind singers like Nina Simone or even Edith Piaf. She has that kind of intensity.

As Jungr explains in a liner note, she chose the music for the album from the “tougher, philosophical, political songs” of the two men. “There’s something in both writers that transcends the material itself, as though the words and music have powers beyond the paper and the groove, beyond the voice and the piano.” It is this kind of identification with the intrinsic mystical power she finds in the music that accounts for the brilliance of her performance.
Hard Rain is a gem. Jungr takes the music of Dylan and Cohen and makes it glow.

[ninasspacechild]

A Thousand Kisses Deep.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuadeNWiWvU

[sebmelmoth2003]

she was on radio 4 at the weekend.

15 minutes approx into the programme.

...Music from song intrepeter Barb Jungr whose new album 'Hallelujah on Desolation Row' sees her back in the company of two songwriters whose music she has spent a lifetime alongside, Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00274rb