[SACD-R][OF]Barb Jungr – Walking in the Sun - 2006 (Vocal, Jazz, Pop/Rock)

 

English chanteuse Barb Jungr knows how to give a song a personality, even when it is a song that already has a strong one. She’s able to grab each song by the horns, and whether it is her own or someone else’s to start with, by the time she’s done, it’s definitely hers. This could be a bad thing in the wrong hands, but fortunately, Jungr has the creativity, skill, and shrewd sense which put her into that select category of artists whom we’re eager to hear cover songs. Her combination of covers and originals on her new Linn Records album ‘Walking in the Sun’ blends seamlessly into one of the most impressive albums I’ve heard this year.
Time and time again, Jungr shapes not only each line or even each song, but the entire ebb and flow of the album. For the keystone position at the center of the album, Jungr takes the melancholy “Rainy Day” by Brownie McGhee and alters the lyrics to sing it from the woman’s point of view, an impressively effective conceit. The easier path would have been to merely change the gender being sung about in the song, but this angle makes it into a portrait of a restless woman’s reflection on the path she had to take. Jessica Lauren’s harmonica chimes in doleful commentary in the background, growing more elaborate as the song grows in emotion. The second half of the album starts off with ‘Take Out Some Insurance’ before Jungr tears into the next track, the most wide-flung and unexpected of the album. It starts with a harsh, aggressive a capella verse of the old traditional song ‘Run On For A Long Time’, which threatens that God will cut you down. But then it runs headlong into Randy Newman’s acid-witted anti-faith song ‘God’s Song’. Its inclusion here is what makes Jungr’s theme truly work. Her subject is faith, and she fearlessly dares to nail it to the wall with a blistering, theatrical account of the number.
Next, astonishingly, comes Bob Dylan’s almost-lost masterpiece ‘Blind Willie McTell’. I say astonishingly because it is boldness bordering on sacrilege to cover a song this great. Thus I was surprised and not a little concerned when I saw that Jungr was covering it on this album. And when the track first started, I was not happy. Jessica Lauren’s arrangement here is almost buoyant, with a jazzy swing. At first glance, it seemed all wrong. But it doesn’t pay to ever underestimate what Jungr and friends might have up their sleeves. As the groove settles in, it gives the song a period feel, like something out of the 1930′s, with a wicked rhythmic hook. Soon it became clear that the buoyancy is actually nervous, kinetic energy. The jazz is the gallows-glamour of Great Depression-era clubs. Jungr turns up her radiance to full and slinks through the first few verses quite affectingly, if still seemingly at odds with the starkness of the song. Then she plays her trump card: The instruments abruptly cease, leaving her alone, vulnerable in the spotlight, lipstick gleaming as a tear falls. She slowly spins out the next verse and chorus like a glimpse into the center of a soul, shadowed by a few mere ghosts of dissonant notes drifting in from the background. When the instruments revive the groove, there is now an urgency and desperation that makes one believe, even if only for a few minutes, that this song couldn’t be done any other way. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t heard it myself.
Once again, I find my thoughts turning back to Bob Dylan, who is obviously a central inspiration to Jungr, even though her own style is quite different from his. She has learned his lessons well: Lessons of vision, commitment, characterization, and control of the ebb and flow of energy. I can offer no greater praise than that. Suffice it to say that when I first started listening to this album, my first coherent thought was: “This can’t possibly be this good.” Now after exploring it, living with it, and running through it with a fine-toothed comb for a few weeks, all I can say is this: It is. (Mark Jordan)

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