★★★★½ Fine English chanteuse takes aim with political and socially critical songs.

Space Theatre, Adelaide
June 12, 2016

It’s hard to believe that a decade has passed since Gaynor Crawford initially presented the fine English chanteuse Barb Jungr and her way with rock music’s bard, Bob Dylan. On her third visit she has chosen to focus upon her recent release, Hard Rain, to which she has returned to the kaleidoscopic word-tumbling images of his Bobness – this time juxtaposing his often roughly etched visions with the precise mastery of the more poetic Leonard Cohen.

Drawing on material from over a fifty-year period, in this recital Jungr often aimed for the more political and socially critical songs. There’s not much in the way of personal travails of love and relationships, choosing instead to aim for issues which widely affect us all. The juxtapostion of Dylan’s early anti-war rant at those in charge (Masters of War) with the withering cynicism of Cohen’s The Future is extremely well planned and as always with this singer she physically imposed herself into this modern world of dysfunction.

It is Cohen who is the true poet here. Many of his lines touch us with their often direct simplicity with a master’s touch for scansion. (Many do forget that Cohen was a published poet and novelist before heading south from Montreal and being waylaid by New York’s folk scene. He was planning on heading further south to Nashville to begin a country career.) And whilst he could labour for years over a poem or lyric, Dylan could have something down within a mere twenty minutes. Aided by the always reliable Mark Fitzgibbon on piano, Jungr never ceased to amaze with her conviction and a unique ability to word-paint like a Lieder singer, driving home the moral lessons brought to us by these two masters. Similarly, with her unerring sense of pitch and phrasing, she is always able to highlight the often unmined beauty of the melodies to these often very dark songs.

However this seriousness was also leavened by the sense of universal hope offered with her encore, Dylan’s early folk anthem, Blowin’ in the Wind. Jungr is an artist who imposes herself upon her audience and perhaps the most magical of all lay in Cohen’s recent Land of Plenty. (May the lights in the land of plenty / Shine on the truth some day.)