As the world faces a global pandemic that has altered the way we all interact and lead our lives, Barb Jungr, Britain’s provocative cabaret/jazz artist, is releasing ‘In My Troubled Days’, a timely new song for the strange times we currently find ourselves in.
She says “Last spring John McDaniel and I decided to write something for a gala performance we were due to do a couple of months later and I sat down and looked out of the window. I was feeling pretty low but the trees were in bud and there was blossom, so I went for a walk along the river. And everything I saw made my heart sing. Every flower, every ripple on the water that caught the sun, made my troubles seem so much smaller. The result was ‘In My Troubled Days’
“When I started a recent collaboration with The Fourth Choir I proposed “In My Troubled Days” as something we might do together, and we recorded it in St. Silas The Martyr Church in Kentish Town just as our world was turning in a direction none of us had foreseen.
“I played the recording to friends, and without exception they said, please, put this out now. So we are. I hope people everywhere will sing it. I hope choirs will sing it. I hope our world turns again and the sun shines again and the sad cafes where no-one has the answer fill again. Meanwhile I watch the blossom and the neighbour’s bees and look towards the stars.”
Choral arrangements for this song will be available online on the release date so that choirs worldwide can sing this together.
A mainstay on the London cabaret scene for nearly 50 years, Barb Jungr was born in Rochdale to Czech and German parents, Barb played the violin and mandolin at an early age. She sang in folk clubs at school and in jazz and blues bands at college and then in London. Starting out a singer and performer on the alternative cabaret circuit, Barb earned numerous plaudits, including a then-legendary Perrier Award. Never one to sit still, physically or artistically, she has evolved through the years into one of the UK’s finest and most distinctive singers. Her exhilarating vocal style fuses her sense of jazz, blues, and soul with elements of everything from musical theatre to African and Iranian folk singing.
She subsequently toured with Kid Creole (in The Three Courgettes); teamed with Michael Parker, she supported Alexie Sayle and Julian Clary, among others. Over four decades, she has never ceased performing live, locally and internationally, as well as appearing regularly on radio and television.
Her 45-year recording career began at CBS in the late 1970s. Alongside many collaborations, she has released 18 solo albums, many for Linn Records, receiving outstanding reviews worldwide and winning many awards. Jungr’s collaboration with John McDaniel has now produced two recordings. In 2011, Jungr received the New York Nightlife Award for Outstanding Cabaret Vocalist, the Backstage Bistro Award for Best International Artist, and Time Out New York’s #1 Top Live Cabaret Act for 2011. Her powerful singing style reaches across musical boundaries and defies easy categorisation.With a devoted following in the UK, Barb has also built a major fan base in the USA and earned many awards there for her CDs and performances (Broadway World award for Hard Rain in 2014, the Time Out New York Cabaret Nightlife Award for Outstanding Vocalist, and Backstage Award for Best International Artist, to name just a few).
