Wichita Lineman [Free Download]

Having enjoyed critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic in the last few years, the hardest working woman in Alternative Cabaret returned to the comfort of her Pimlico home, eager to seek out for new musical challenges. In collaborating with pianist, arranger, producer and friend Simon Wallace, Barb struck a chord that become the foundation of The Men I Love - The New American Songbook, providing Barb an opportunity to put together a varied and challenging programme of some of the American compositions of modern times that she loved the most.

From Barb Jungr:

The Men I love documents two things - my love of American popular song and its songwriters. There is a body of great work which sits for me right inside the classic Great American Songbook, where songs both stand the test of time and also are able to be re-imagined and sometimes re-harmonised easily, allowing them to grow and develop beyond original recordings.

I worked on this collection for some time and then collaborated with Simon Wallace to arrange the songs for a season at the fabulous uptown venue, the Café Carlyle in New York City. The Café had become famous for a particular type of American and European song, and this collection blew the doors wide open. The season was wonderful, and audiences queued up to tell me how much the songs meant to them. At that time Simon and I began to look at how to record them in a way that represented the singing ‘live'.

We achieved this by recording hundreds - literally, of versions with piano and voice, till we found the performances. Then we asked some of Britain's greatest musicians to come and work on the songs - including bassist Steve Watts, cellist Frank Schaeffer, flute genius Clive Bell and percussionist Paul Clarvis.

...And now it is finished!!!

Produced by Simon Wallace