Under-appreciated interpretors

It's the singer songwriters who get all the glory, but just because they wrote the words it doesn't mean they are always the best people to communicate the message within the lyrics.  Of course, cover versions are often simply pale imitations of the orginal, but once in a while someone comes along who takes a set of lyrics to a whole new level.  The new June Tabor and Oyster Band CD does that with my favourite song, 'Love Will Tear Us Apart', and last Friday I saw Barb Jungr do the most incredible things with the songs of Bob Dylan.



I've loved her work for years, but hadn't previously seen her live, and the best word I can come up with describe her performance is visceral.  It helped that were right at the front, no more than ten feet from her, and it was awe-inspiring.  I recall seeing her on BBC Breakfast once and the presenters did the usual 'You're going to sing for us, aren't you?' routine, and got much more than they bargained for.  She didn't get up from the couch, and just started, from cold at 08:30 in the morning, and with awesome power- poor old  Bill didn't know where to put himself as Barb stared into his eyes and sang a love long beautifully.

'Like A Rolling Stone' was imbued with a power and a viciousness that Dylan's voice just doesn't get across, and she finished with 'God On Our Side'.  When she sang the seventh verse...

But now we got weapons
Of the chemical dust
If fire them we're forced to
Then fire them we must
One push of the button
And a shot the world wide
And you never ask questions
When God's on your side.
...the fact that we were seeing her at the New Greenham Arts Centre, built on the site of Greenham Common, scene of the women's peace camp, and for so many years home to Cruise missiles, meant that a collective shiver ran through the audience.  We were sitting right by where, in 1958, a B-47 bomber was destroyed with a resulting radiation leak!

Her singing was great, and her introductions to the songs, including lots of 'Dylanology' were wonderful -at some times, funny, and at others extremely moving.  Her intro to 'The Man In The Long Black Coat' was excellent, and there wasn't a dry eye in the house when she told the story of the one-man audience at a gig when she first took 'The Songs of Bob Dylan' to New York.

She goes back there next month in triumph for sell-out shows over a week, and then she heads off to Austin, LA and SF.  If you can't get to see her UK gigs, buy the album, but the band that backs her on it, although really good, can't capture the power of seeing her live with only her pianist to accompany her.