BARB JUNGR : Love Me Tender SACD Hybrid

Barb Jungr

Love me Tender

all* vocals & tambourine: Barb Jungr
Adrian York -celeste, piano, vocoder programming, synth, organ, bells, waterfone and soundscape recordings
Jonathan Cooper- clarinets, piano, keyboard samples and sounds cape
Miriam Teppich - violin
Dominika Rosiek - violin
Rebecca Brown- viola
Thangam Debbonaire - cello
Billy Jackson - harp
Mario Castronari - acoustic bass
*backing voices - Barb Jungr, Mari Wilson, Ian Shaw (track 13)

Plays on all SCAD and CD Players

Barb writes:
Night. Some mythical Deep South. Looking through the frayed, gently blowing curtains into the large room of a decaying ante bellum house. Vines push through the ceiling and roots puncture the floorboards. On a chair, in the moonlight, a woman in a faded ball gown sits, spine straight, eyes straight ahead, cradling the bruised and bloodied body of her dreams to her heart. In the corner of the room casting intermittent green light a modem blinks. Beating time. Silently.

That's the picture that came to me when this collection of songs came together. With this repertoire and the memory of the King, something happened and the songs and the language we needed musically, emerged of their own accord.

The songs are not all obvious, though some are. They chose themselves as soon as I started to peel the list down and work on the material. The lyrics, when exposed, tell a very different story of life, love, loss and faith now, and speak to the memory of the great singer who sang them half a century ago.

I am indebted to Howard Thompson for pushing me towards this repertoire, to my stupendous arrangers Adrian and Jonathan, and of course Calum Malcolm - who have to put up with me talking in images and demanding the impossible, and to all the friends and colleagues who gave research help, song suggestions and encouraged in every way.

Produced by Barb Jungr, Adrian York and Calum Malcolm. Arrangements: Adrian York and Jonathan Cooper. Recordings: Calum Malcolm, Adrian York and Jonathan Cooper. Recorded at Livingston Studios with help from Jon Olliffe.,
and at Adrian York and Jonathan Cooper's studios.
Mixed by Calum Malcolm and Adrian York at Calum Malcolm's studio.
Photos and sleeve design: John Haxby
Barb Jungr's Website design James Johnstone

Poised between pop, jazz and cabaret, Jungr's tributes to Jacques Brel, Léo Ferré and Dylan are among the most thoughtful British recordings of the past decade. She takes risks - an album dedicated to Presley could easily turn into high-grade kitsch - but there are no such problems here. Always on My Mind, along with the title ballad and the superb Love Letters, are transformed. The arrangers, Adrian York and Jonathan Cooper, have stripped the pieces to their basics, with Jungr's voice cushioned by celeste, minimalist piano figures and string quartet. Presley's lush sentimentality goes out of the window: in its place is an art-song sensibility tinged with cultured R&B. ****
Clive Davis, Sunday Times

If you hate it when you go to a concert and all your favorite band plays is cover songs, then don't go see Barb Jungr's fall tour. She is tearing up Europe following the recent release of Love Me Tender; which includes 11 songs performed by Elvis and two by Bob Dylan. Her exotic voice drives me to fantasize about her sitting atop a piano in a smoky pub, holding a cigarello in one hand and a tall glass of Boddingtons in the other. Heartbreak Hotel blows me away every time I listen to it. The fresh rendition with Barb's signature jazzy overtone touch is so breath-taking, you really can't believe the rock roots behind it. To compare Barb with other singers wouldn't do her talents justice, but if I had to, I would say the closest audible comparison would be Johnette Napolitano from Concrete Blonde. I have never been a fan of Elvis' music, but get me to Graceland baby, I have been reborn!!!!

Barb, a cabaret singer by trade, has herein followed up her 2002 release, Every Grain of Sand, a superb album chock full of Bob Dylan's songs. Her raspy, Marlboro-perfected voice out performs any impersonator I have ever heard. Barb's soulful voice does wonders for all 13 tracks on the album. In the Ghetto is perfectly crooned. I can only imagine how lucky the band members felt at the end of that session. One of my favorites, Are You Lonely Tonight, is done with such raw emotion, that I can't visualize it being sung by Elvis.

Barb's classical rendition of the rebellious song I Shall Be Released (one of my favorite Bob Dylan songs snuck into this album) could start riots in the prisons with her, "Come on boys follow me!" attitude. Overall I thoroughly enjoyed the album. I have never been a fan of Elvis' music when performed by him, but these covers are amazing. I just wish Barb was gigging over here, maybe at the Green Mill in Chicago… I dream big! Four and a half stars
Audiophile Audition - September 2005

One could argue that there was always a darker side to The King, but the hips distracted you. Paring his greatest hits down to their bare essentials, as Barb Jungr has done in her latest CD from Linn records (Love Me Tender - AKD 255) reveals a collection of tracks heavy with potent lyrics, which have, up till now, been more familiar to us for their melodies (and the hips). The easiest approach is to slow the numbers down, and is perhaps the only thing to do, but this seems slightly overdone by arranger Adrian York. At first listen you have the feeling you are listening to some bizarre horror movie soundtrack. On second listen, however, the 'Elvis versions' in your head, which are no doubt the cause of this unsettlement, fade, and Jungr pretty much takes over. A tall order to achieve this, but naturally Jungr is the one to do it. And there is a fell to the whole album that renders multiple listenings possible, so that the achievement is more than just rearrangement for rearrangement's sake. Some numbers are wonderfully quirky, such as 'Wooden Heart', and 'Are You Lonesome Tonight?' is haunting to the point of almost becoming an invocation of the spirit of The King himself.
The Singer June 2005