Jill Barber, sister of popular singer-songwriter Matthew Barber, is looking forward to bringing her cross Canadian tour to Lethbridge, Dec. 2 at the Southminster United Church — a fundraiser for Womanspace sponsored by the Geomatic Attic.
“I don’t know a lot about them, but I hear a lot of good things about them,” said Barber on a fading cellphone from the middle of Northern Ontario, where she is in the
middle of a winter tour, en route to Winnipeg.
“It is a fundraiser, so I’ve got a lot of information about them. I’m really looking forward to being part of it. It’s going to be lots of fun,” she said.
“And we’re playing in a church. I love playing churches, they are made for music. The band is looking forward to it,” she said.
“We’re a six-piece. They’re my guys. They’re guitar, bass, drums, piano, clarinet saxophone and me,” she enthused.
“They’re really, really great. We have a fun time every night. We drove 19 hours from Belleville to Thunder Bay, so what we look forward to the most is just being on stage each night and playing music for people,” she continued adding in addition to touring with the music for her most recent CD “Chances,” she is also touring in support of her new baby board book “Baby’s Lullabye, which is based on her song “Lay Down.”
“So that’s been an interesting contrast. I play shows in the evening, and in the morning I’m at book stores, playing songs for kids,” she said adding she doesn’t have babies of her own or even have songs written for kids, though she gets lots of kids coming to her shows.
“I don’t have babies, but a lot of my friends have them,” she said.
“I wrote the lullabye for a charity that supports early childhood literacy, and then a publisher called and asked me if I wanted to do a baby board book based on the song. I said ‘sure, just tell me what a baby board book is.’ He said ‘do you want to be published,’ so the book just fell into my lap,” she said adding her shows attract “everybody from babes in arms to people in their ’80s.”
“I’m not Fred Penner, but the kids seem to like any of my songs that have a beat that they can dance to,” she said of her ’60s pop flavoured, jazz tinged music.
“We use violins and string sections, so my music takes you back to the ’60s. So the jazz influence does come from that classic ’60s pop. You don’t hear a lot of songs using string sections like they did in the ’60s,” she said adding the last time she played Lethbridge was at the old Tongue N’ Groove, five or six years ago.
“We’re going to be playing music from my last CD “Chances,” and some sones froma record we’re just completing called “Mischievous Moon,” she continued adding her songwriting has evolved.
“I’m really pleased with it. Stylistically, the music is more grown-up. Before I was writing about a girl falling in love, now I’m writing about a woman in love. And the music is more ambitious,” she continued.
