January 2010 gig reviews by Chris Parker

Barb Jungr

Saturday 16 January

'The Men I Love' is the title of Barb Jungr's latest project, but (although – Felice Bryant aside – everything she sang was indeed written by a man) it might (as she herself pointed out) have been more accurately called the 'New American Songbook', her two sets comprising as they did songs from that continent written in the decades immediately following the heyday of the Great American Songbook, subsequent to the replacement in the popular charts of standards and show tunes by rock'n'roll, soul, rock and folk.

She began her set, in which she was accompanied by pianist Simon Wallace, as she often used to begin her performances with Jessica Lauren and Jenny Carr: with Marc Cohn's 'Walking in Memphis', the perfect warm-up vehicle for both her and Wallace, enabling him to flex his fingers and create a rolling, rollickingly infectious rhythm under her rousing, joyously exuberant delivery.

She then performed an unusually punchy version of Bob Dylan's 'You Ain't Going Nowhere' before going straight for the emotional jugular with a song that is frequently described as a tribute to Brill Building songwriters such as Carol King: Todd Rundgren's 'I Saw the Light'.

In Jungr's hands, however, any slight traces of glibness in Rundgren's lyrics disappeared, transmuted into aching sincerity and transforming the song, in the process, into a simple, profoundly touching acknowledgement of straightforward devotion.

After a brief, much-needed emotional gear-change (Edwin Starr's 'Breaking Down the Walls of Heartache'), Jungr again dug down into the New American Songbook and unearthed a song which, in its most familiar version (the Monkees' peppy hit single), evokes little of the emotion she managed to extract from it: Neil Diamond's 'I'm a Believer'.

Taking them at a languorously slow tempo, Jungr infused Diamond's lyrics with extraordinary tenderness, so that the song became a prayerful petition for careful treatment of a vulnerable heart, along the lines of, say, Cole Porter's 'Get Out of Town'.

Such sensitive transformations of apparently familiar songs have been Jungr's trademark for much of her career, and after closing her first set with visits to material made famous by the Everly Brothers and the Four Tops, as well as bringing Paul Simon's 'My Little Town' over the Atlantic to her own home town, Rochdale, Jungr worked her almost alchemical magic, in her second set, on David Gates's 'Everything I Own', Doc Pomus's 'Can't Get Used to Losing You' and – little alchemy needed, admittedly, since it's simply one of the most touching love songs ever written – Jimmy Webb's 'Wichita Lineman'.

Also including mesmerising versions of songs by David Byrne, Bruce Springsteen, Leonard Cohen (the relatively neglected but wonderfully evocative 'Night Comes On', from Various Positions), Iggy Pop and Kris Kristofferson, this was a flawless performance from Jungr and the discreetly supportive but vibrant Wallace; as an interpreter of the works of writers ranging from Jacques Brel to Bob Dylan, Ray Davies to Neil Diamond, she is simply matchless.

January 2010
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Gig reviews archive

Barb Jungr

Saturday 16 January

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January 2010 gig reviews

Gig reviews archive

Barb Jungr

Saturday 16 January

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January 2010
gig reviews

Join the Vortex
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