Cabaret Chanteuse BARB JUNGR's New CD Celebrating the Songs of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen Being Released on 3/24

Barb Jungr has been called the UK's finest interpreter of song, especially the songs of singer/songwriting icons Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. Jungr has also taken the New York cabaret scene by storm the last few years, having performed her celebrated Dylan tribute show, Man In the Long Black Coat (also available as a CD and called "the most significant vocal album of the 21st century thus far," by the Wall Street Journal) at the Metropolitan Room in 2011 and 2012. She most recently performed some Dylan and Cohen songs in her critically acclaimed show, Dancing in the Dark, at 59E59 theatre last December, a show which included dramatic song interpretations the New York Times called "revelatory." In a review of her Bob Dylan show at the Metropolitan Room in 2012, BroadwayWorld Cabaret columnist and reviewer Stephen Hanks wrote that: "Barb Jungr is much more than a Bob Dylan tribute artist. Her show celebrating one of the world's greatest troubadours is a righteous revelation."

Now, Barb Jungr returns to the songs of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen with the release on March 24 of her new CD, Hard Rain (from Kristalyn Records and distributed by Absolute via Universal), which will also be available for download. 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. (See the video on the making of Jungr's new CD below.)

Often referred to as "the politicised chansonnier" and cited as one of the world's best performers of Dylan's material, Jungr turns to six of his most politically hard-hitting songs, along with five of Leonard Cohen's most impassioned songs of conscience. Hard Rain reflects Jungr's despair with the political times that we live in and she has deliberately chosen songs (such as the Dylan classic "Blowin' In The Wind," which is now 51 years old) that resonate as strongly today as they did when they were originally written.

"The space in between has always been my default position; between song and singer, lyric and music, arrangement and performance," Jungr explains. "So I am amazed to be so clear about this collection. I knew right from the start it was all the tougher songs of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen that I wanted to sing. I knew there was somehow a through thread to them; that the world they described and the actions they rejected and celebrated were of as much importance today as the day those songs were penned. 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. So I'm entering a new decade with singing a clutch of special songs that have moved and shaken, caressed and struck me."

All of the arrangements on the album are by Jungr and her long-time collaborator and accompanist, the pianist Simon Wallace, who also produced the album. Joining Jungr and Wallace are Neville Malcom and Steve Watts (on bass), Gary Hammond (percussion), Clive Bell (Shakahachi), and Richard Olatunde Baker (on talking drum and additional percussion). 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.

Hard Rain 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)