Robb Johnson
Please note that due to circumstances beyond our control, Barb Jungr has had to cancel her previously advertised performance tonight. We hope to confirm another date with Barb in 2005.
Pirate Jenny's cheer is not just seasonal tonight: our fourth session at new venue the Drill Hall 2 also celebrates ten years of bringing the best of international chanson and musical cabaret to London. We're proud to mark the occasion with a bill of outstanding and provocative performers that well maintain the standards set when Pirate Jenny's founder and host Des de Moor invited Kate and Mike Westbrook and the Lost Puppies to join him on the stage of the Vortex in Stoke Newington on 5 December 1994.
Robb Johnson's pithy, literate and moving songs place him in a category far
removed from the comfortable cliche of the acoustic singer-songwriter. He's
powerfully political without being preachy or simplistic, with an intensity
and humanity borrowed from the French-language artists like Jacques Brel,
whose songs Robb has also translated.
Robb's work is represented on a string
of albums, including a major song cycle Gentle Men,
commissioned for the peace concerts at Passendale (Passchendaele), Belgium,
and performed at the Albert Hall. He's also a key figure in the small
but highly creative English Chanson movement, putting together numerous live
shows featuring the genre's leading practitioners. Tonight's set features a
mix of old songs and new material.
"The finest songwriter to emerge from these isles in the last decade." Rock
'n' Reel
Pirate Jenny's founder and host Des de Moor is acknowledged as one of Britain's leading artists working in the cabaret-chanson tradition, a powerful and unique singer and performer with a repertoire encompassing his own salty English chansons and innovative interpretations of other people's material, including a line in original and faithful English versions of mainland European songs. Tonight he concludes a run of four different sets showcasing the various areas of his repertoire with I Travel Alone, a celebration of the hidden history of English chanson with tunes from the likes of Noël Coward, Ray Davies and Vi Subversa.
Also joining us tonight in the guest chansonnier slot is John Peacock, a familiar site to Pirate Jenny's audiences as a sideman in Philip Jeays' band, but also a unique and brilliantly inventive singer-songwriter in his own right, as he's sure to convince you tonight. Currently based in Germany, John delivers intelligent and stealthily intense material in a deceptively unassuming style, occupying the aesthetic territory of figures like Antonio Carlos Jobim and Tim Buckley but infused with his own very English eccentricity.
Robb Johnson website www.robbjohnson.co.uk
Back to the Pirate Jenny's page
Des de Moor
John Peacock
"One of Britain's most challenging songwriters." Daily Telegraph
"Probably the most astute political songwriter in Britain." Morning Star
John Peacock website www.johnpeacock.com
Back to Des de Moor's home page
16 Chenies Street
London WC1E 7EX
www.drillhall.co.uk
Box office
+44 (0)20 7307 5060
Times 20:00-22:00 hrs PROMPT
Tickets UKP7.00/5.00
Licensed bar
Space at the Drill Hall 2 is limited so advance booking is highly recommended
Underground Goodge Street (Northern Line)
National Rail Euston (Virgin, Silverlink)
Bus 10, 24, 29, 73, 134, 390
Map
Journey Planner
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