Barb Jungr — On the Edge Is Where Things Get Interesting

Getting to know Barb and spend some time working with her transformed the way I think about arranging and performing music. She and her work have had a tremendous influence on me and so I’m really thrilled to share with you this episode of Studio Time with Barb Jungr.

In this episode we discuss:

• Barb’s introduction to music via the family radio
• The story of her parents moving to Britain after WW2 to build new lives
• The course she studied as an undergraduate - it certainly wasn’t music!
• How jazz and cabaret might be considered musical “approaches” rather than musical genres
• “I think where the edge is, is where things are interesting...and where you can think and where you can fly or jump off.”
• Nicolas Roeg - film director
• Cal McCrystal - theatre and film director
• Bill Hicks - comedian
• What Barb learned from sharing stages with comedians such as Alexi Sayles and Julian Clary
• Being invited by the British Arts Council to tour to the Sudan, Malawi, Cameroon and the Yemen
• On touring to different countries: “Oh God. It just takes the ceiling off your house! You see the world differently.”
• “I think all discoveries are really just about yourself... People go to Antarctica to find themselves... All quests are the same... We’re all basically just coming to terms with ourselves.”
• Why the term ‘solo artist’ can be a misnomer
• “The thing about your ‘own thing’, is that it isn’t just your own thing. I’m always working with musicians... It’s not like I’m standing there on my own on a stage.”
• When it comes to other songwriters there are many women whose songs Barb loves to listen to and sing, but she hasn’t chosen to record a ‘massive body’ of any of their work the way she has with men such as Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Jacques Brel.
• “In a moth-like, flame-like way, I’m drawn to disturbed laser-like ways of looking at the world.”
• On what fans enjoy about her work: “There’s something in the flavour of what any of us do that other people relate to.”

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