Barb Jungr – Every Grain Of Sand (2002) [Reissue 2003] {SACD ISO + FLAC 24bit/88,2kHz}

The cult classic album of song-styled material from the Bob Dylan songbook. Barb Jungr’s first album of Bob Dylan songs has deservedly become known as a cult classic and has won her a dedicated fan base around the world. The album even has celebrity fans, with Jeremy Irons naming it as one of the must-have albums on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs.

Every Grain of Sand is a breathtaking revelation on several fronts. First, Barb Jungr treats Bob Dylan as one of the great tunesmiths of the American popular tradition. Not merely as rock & roll’s preeminent songwriter, the direction from which virtually all others have approached his canon, but as a sophisticated composer the equal of the Gershwins, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, or Cole Porter. Jungr dramatically re-reads that canon and she fearlessly reshapes it in the process. To cite the most radical instances, she turns “Things Have Changed” into an Eastern European jig and “Tangled up in Blue” into a jaunty, jazzy western, while “Born in Time” is a marvel full of Baroque voicings. One may quibble – and Dylan fanatics, known to be provincial on occasion, certainly will, perhaps vociferously – with an arrangement here or a lyrical interpretation or subtle shading there without – and here is the magic of the album – in the least invalidating the singer’s choices. Indeed, part of the sublime beauty of Every Grain of Sand is that it inspires, even challenges, one to make personal revisions and reinterpretations. Ultimately, Jungr is one of the few artists who has managed to not only come out on the other side of this songbook unscathed, but to actually come out having enhanced its gravity, significance, and unvarnished beauty as well as her own. She is not merely singing, but telling stories. She opens up a window of vulnerability and sensuality that had previously sat stoic beneath the surface of these songs and suffuses them with such a delicate, gauzy luminosity that they seem to glow from the inside out. Her singing is soulful and emotionally naked, and the performances are so expressive that you take something new away with each listen. The treasures (“I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight,” “Ring Them Bells,” “Not Dark Yet,” “Is Your Love in Vain?,” and “What Good Am I?”) tucked away here are endlessly rewarding. If you think you’ve heard Bob Dylan – or Barb Jungr – before Every Grain of Sand, you are, simply put, mistaken.

Tracklist:
01. I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight
02. If Not For You
03. Things Have Changed
04. Ring Them Bells
05. Not Dark Yet
06. Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright
07. Is Your Love In Vain
08. It’s All Over Now Baby Blue
09. I Want You
10. Sugar Baby
11. Born In Time
12. What Good Am I?
13. Tangled Up In Blue
14. Forever Young
15. Every Grain Of Sand

Produced and Engineered by Calum Malcolm.
Recorded at Mark Angel Studios, Acton on 7th-9th October 2001.

Personnel
Barb Jungr – vocals, harmonica
Simon Wallace – piano (tracks 1-3, 5-8, 10-12, 14-15)
Russell Churney – piano (tracks 4, 9, 13)
Mark Lockheart – saxophone
Kim Burton – accordion
Sonya Fairburn – violin
Sonia Oakes Stuart – cello
Julie Walkington – double bass
Gary Hammond – percussion

SACD ISO

BarbJungrEveryGrain0fSand2002SACDIS0.part1.rar
BarbJungrEveryGrain0fSand2002SACDIS0.part2.rar
BarbJungrEveryGrain0fSand2002SACDIS0.part3.rar
BarbJungrEveryGrain0fSand2002SACDIS0.part4.rar

FLAC 24bit/88,2kHz

BarbJungrEveryGrain0fSand2002FLACStere02496.part1.rar
BarbJungrEveryGrain0fSand2002FLACStere02496.part2.rar