Jill Barber fell in love.

And like most people who fall in love, the 28-year-old singer-songwriter was driven by her feeling, penning more love songs than she had ever done before.

Gone was the inevitable melancholy of anticipated heartbreak, and in its place, burning passion and lush string arrangements, the kind Johnny Mercer would have done for a Patsy Cline or Johnny Mathis love song in the 1950s.

The result is Chances, Barber's fourth record and her biggest creative departure to date because on it, the award-winning folkie reinvents herself as a bona fide torch singer.

"Most of my earlier love songs were sad," she says over the phone from her parent's condo in Toronto. "But this time I wanted to write something unabashedly romantic, songs that are happy and joyful. I wanted the songs to sound timeless, the next Moon River.

"People have often told me that my voice sounds like it's from another era. Patsy Cline or Etta James or Edith Piaf. I felt a real kinship with Piaf because of the way she sang. I was in love and wanted to embellish that romantic feeling in my music. Piaf was so good at that."

To help her reach her creative potential, Barber, who was a double-nominee at the 2008 Junos and multiple East Coast Music Award winner for 2006's For All Time, enrolled in a songwriting workshop at the Banff Centre where she learned to generate her own creative inspiration.

By the end of "intense" workshops, she had enough songs for a new album -- and an entirely new vision of herself.

"Once I got started, I couldn't stop," she says of her new songwriting prowess. "I find the best songs are the simplest.

"I found my voice as a songwriter. I want every album to be different, but this is an important step forward for me."

To give the songs the right '50s feel, she and producer Les Cooper brought in a 10-piece orchestra with the Good Lovelies and Ron Sexsmith lending guest vocals.

Oddly, Chances was overlooked for a Juno. But then, so was Martha Wainwright, who had a banner year in 2008. That's a major omission that caused music-watchers to question the Juno nomination process.

Even though she is somewhat disappointed she wasn't nominated, she's still too excited about the new record, and the romance that inspired it, to mope.

"I like to think of myself as a hopeful romantic, rather than a helpless one."