Barb Jungr

An English singer, songwriter, and cabaret performer, Barb Jungr has earned notice through her inventive reworkings of material by Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley, and Leonard Cohen. International audiences know her especially for the 2002 album Every Grain of Sand and for repeated Broadway engagements in New York. She relocated to London from northwest England in the mid-1970s and promptly entered the city’s music, theater, and film circles. CBS Records soon issued her debut single “He’s Gone,” which NME placed among its Singles of the Week selections. Together with Jerry Kreeger and blues guitarist Michael Parker she created the Three Courgettes, an act present at the dawn of London’s alternative cabaret movement. Island Records discovered the vocal trio while they busked new wave gospel numbers along the Kings Road and at Portobello Market. The group then issued two favorably received singles on the label that opened doors to tours alongside Sade and Kid Creole & the Coconuts.

Once the Courgettes disbanded, Jungr issued a solo album on Magnet Records that later attained collector status; in the early 1980s she reunited with Parker as the duo Jungr & Parker. Over the ensuing thirteen years they toured widely abroad and delivered their distinctive blend of folk, blues, and jazz on British television and radio, ultimately receiving the Perrier Award. Six albums appeared during this period, one of them on Billy Bragg’s Utility imprint. By the start of the 1990s Jungr’s principal creative focus had shifted to ambitious, thematically organized live productions. Throughout the first half of the decade she developed and directed these acclaimed presentations for ensembles and as solo vehicles, staging them conceptually at respected rooms such as the Purcell Room and Pizza on the Park. Prominent examples included “Hell Bent Heaven Bound,” staged with Ian Shaw, Christine Collister, and Parker and another Perrier recipient, and “Money the Final Frontier,” presented with Mari Wilson and jazz singer Claire Martin; the two shows were later combined on the cassette Hell Bent Heaven Bound II credited to Jungr, Collister, Parker, and Helen Watson.

Amid her demanding performance and touring commitments, Jungr undertook numerous additional projects. With James Tomalin she began writing music for television programs and theater companies, directed vocal workshops, and arranged and conducted choral ensembles. She also researched, taught, wrote, and lectured on the voice and European cabaret. In 1996 she obtained a Master’s degree in ethnomusicology from Goldsmith’s College, an achievement that prompted the formation of the trio Durga Rising—originally named JBC—with tabla player Kuljit Bhamra and longtime pianist Russell Churney; the group recorded and released the one-time project Durga Rising that same year.

By decade’s end Jungr was contributing songs to cabaret anthologies, frequently for Irregular Records, which also issued her collection Bare containing striking covers of Jacques Brel, Ray Davies, and Kris Kristofferson together with original material. Only with the subsequent album Chanson: The Space in Between did recordings fully capture the breadth of her interpretive range. Issued on Linn Records, Chanson presented vividly expressive readings of works by Brel, Jacques Prévert, Léo Ferré, and Cole Porter, often using newly commissioned translations and distinctive arrangements; Britain’s Sunday Times placed it on the year-end jazz Top Ten. Jungr next delivered the luminous Every Grain of Sand, an entire program drawn from Bob Dylan’s catalog, which she approached as a stylist comparable to the foremost figures in American song. The album premiered live with a sold-out engagement at the Soho Theatre and subsequently traveled to New York City in autumn 2002. In the same interval she advanced work on the musical The Ballad of Norah’s Ark, scheduled for the following year, and recorded classical composer Jonathan Cooper’s “Moon Cycle,” written expressly for her voice and slated for its premiere in 2003. That year also brought the Backstage Bistro Award for Best International Artist. During 2004 she recorded Love Me Tender, a set of Elvis Presley covers released in early 2005. The next year she returned with the original album Walking in the Sun, featuring London musicians Eric Gibbs on guitar and Roy Dodds on drums. In 2007 she collaborated with classical composer Mark-Anthony Turnage on the production “About Water,” marking the reopening of the Royal Festival Hall and performed with the London Sinfonietta chamber orchestra. Another tribute album, Just Like a Woman: Hymn to Nina, appeared in 2008 and contained Nina Simone songs; the same year she received New York’s Nightlife Award for Outstanding Cabaret Vocalist.

Early in 2010 Jungr issued her tenth album, The Men I Love: The New American Songbook. In 2011 she released another Bob Dylan tribute, Man in the Long Black Coat. The following year Stockport to Memphis came out on Naim Jazz, combining original songs with further interpretations of classic material. After a relatively quiet 2013 she resurfaced in 2014 with Hard Rain: The Songs of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen and supported the release with tours across the United States and the United Kingdom. Subsequent seasons included transatlantic dates with American composer and musical director John McDaniel devoted to deconstructions of Beatles hits, as well as work with contemporary jazz composer Laurence Hobgood on the Linn Records album Shelter from the Storm, issued in early 2016. That year she also appeared as guest artist in Lincoln Center’s American Songbook series honoring Peggy Lee in New York. Jungr reissued Every Grain of Sand in 2017, its first appearance on vinyl, and promoted it with a nationwide U.K. tour plus concerts in Berlin. In 2018 she released Float Like a Butterfly: The Songs of Sting and again toured with McDaniel to support the project.