Barbra Streisand’s long list of achievements as a singer, actress, director, songwriter, producer, political activist and contributor to the economic lexicon (see: “Streisand effect”), now added “memoirist,” thanks to her 970-page autobiography, My name is Barbra.
But music – singing – was undoubtedly the anchor of her career and perhaps her greatest gift to the world. Classical pianist Glenn Gould wrote that “Streisand’s voice is one of the natural wonders of this age, an instrument of infinite variety and source of sound.” It can be supple, thunderous, soft, sinuous, brassy, rounded, gorgeous.
Streisand has numerous signature classics (“People,” “Don’t Rain on My Parade,” “The Way We Were,” “Guilty”), but her taste and talent were adventurous and, for the most part, deeply instructive. She is one of the few artists who makes you want to stand in awe and melt in a puddle. This, as you can imagine, is difficult to do at the same time.
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Here’s a playlist that will let you try out Streisand’s many moods and modes.
“Miss Marmelstein” (1962)
Streisand was only 19 when she appeared on Broadway in the musical I can get it for you in bulk— and stopped the show with this number, a comic romantic lament of an unmarried secretary. The humor, the surprising way of shaping the lyrics and the soaring, crushing vocal pyrotechnics were already in place. After that, she performed on stage fun girl, and after that she went to Hollywood. What was she going to do, wait to play Miss Hannigan Annie? Although she did record a bossa nova version of that show’s big hit, “Tomorrow.”
“Napoleon” (1962)
Early in her career, Streisand often performed novelty acts (“Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf”) and largely forgotten Broadway songs. “Napoleon”, which she performed in a live club set that eventually became the 2022 album. Live at Bon Soir, was introduced by Lena Horne in a 1950s show called Jamaica. A sincere salute to darkness (“Napoleon is a pastry/ Bismarck is a herring”), Streisand performs it with an amusing but pointed swagger. She weaves her way through the lyrics with the skill of a trapeze player.
“Mother” (1971)
Six years after Bob Dylan became an electrician in Newport, Streisand went pop-rock with two albums in one year, Stony End and Barbra Joan Streisand. (Why didn’t an enterprising music journalist try to figure out the connection between these seismic events?) Both albums show Streisand’s strong determination to go beyond tunes and the American Songbook—proving to the world, she writes, that “I could change with the times.” Barbara Joan includes her unusually memorable cover of “Mother,” John Lennon’s cathartic lament about the traumas of his childhood. Streisand is not one to wail: she plows through this psychodrama with sheer lung power and piercing treble. Lennon urges you to pity, Streisand to submission.
By the way, writes Streisand My name is Barbra that Dylan once sent her a text telling her she was his favorite star, and that he wrote “Lay, Lady, Lay” with her in mind. One can dream.
“A Simple Man” (1974)
One of Streisand’s most underrated performances — many have complained over the years that there aren’t enough of them — this Gram Parsons cover can be found on the album Butterfly, which comes from the era of Streisand’s relationship with former hairdresser Jon Peters. (He told her she reminded him of a butterfly. Hence the title.) Peters, played by Bradley Cooper in a hilarious extended cameo in licorice pizza, is credited as a producer, although Streisand writes that he was out of his mind in the recording studio and that she was done with key parts of the work. The album remains a very uneven mix of songs – David Bowie described her version of “Life on Mars?” as “cruel” — but her self-harmony on “A Simple Man” has a crystalline loveliness. It floats like… you know.
“Lazy Afternoon” (1975)
One of Streisand’s most seductive (and overlooked) performances, this is another Broadway rarity, first sung by Kaye Ballard in Golden apple. The suggestion to film, Streisand writes, came from “director Francis Coppola…over a sukiyaki dinner.” So now you know. It is a lazy, playful, soporific dream of sexual pleasure, evoking a pastoral landscape that breathes and sighs with the erotic impulses of nature. The album also includes one of Streisand’s most powerful ballads, “Letters That Cross in the Mail” — a performance that’s practically oozing with emotion. Although it might not make sense to anyone who deals with email, texting and ghosting. Just google “Postal Service”.
“Auf dem Wasser zu singen” (1976)
You may not have known that Streisand released an album of arias, Classic Barbra? She even dared to sing — in German! — this delicate Schubert poem about a boat drifting along the water as the light fades. (It’s a metaphor for the transience of life, whether performed by Renee Fleming or, in some distant future, Grimes.) Streisand sings it very catchily, with a slight rhythmic bounce. Pianist Gould, despite being intoxicated by her singing, was not completely enthusiastic about the album — he suggested that she try a Bach cantata next time.
“Woman in Love” (1980)
As incredible as it may seem, or maybe not at all, it is one of Streisand’s best albums Guilty, a pop-disco collaboration with Barry Gibb. You won’t necessarily want to dance to it, but the music throughout has a certain groove — a shimmering energy — and Streisand’s voice is remarkably supple. On the lush, brooding “Woman in Love,” she rides the waves of the melody, rising and rising and rising and rising. It is flawless, fantastic. And yet, Streisand writes, she resisted the song because she couldn’t understand Gibb’s rather obscure lyrics. In the end, though, “I thought, F— that. Forget the words. Just do it.”
“Nothing Strange” by Yentl (1983)
Streisand devotes many pages of her memoir to creation Yentl, and you can’t really blame her. It’s one of the greatest original movie musicals of the past 50 years, with music by Michel Legrand and Marilyn and Alan Bergman (all sung by Streisand herself), yet it wasn’t nominated for best director — somewhat, she writes, which left her “devastated “. (Also, Isaac Bashevis Singer, whose story “Yentl the Yeshiva Boy” was the source of the film, was upset that Streisand had the nerve to add songs to it. The Nobel laureate should have come out more often.)
“No Wonder,” in which Streisand’s Yentl (disguised as a boy) watches Avidgor (Mandy Patinkin) adored by his intended (Amy Irving), is probably the best song. Streisand sings it with sharp, rueful humor and a hint of pain. And she shot the scene, set around a crowded, busy table, with a warm intimacy. It’s as good as anything else from Fun girl or On a clear day you can see forever, film musicals she recorded with directors William Wyler and Vincente Minnelli.
“Tell Him” with Celine Dion (1997)
There is a reason My name is Barbra it has almost 1000 pages. One of dozens of famous Streisand duets (everyone from Judy Garland to Willie Nelson), this smash pop hit with Céline Dion has a complicated, highly detailed backstory.
Well: At the 1997 Academy Awards, Natalie Cole was expected to perform “I Finally Found Someone,” a theme from Streisand’s The mirror has two faces. The song “Someone” itself was Streisand’s duet with Bryan Adams, and both she and Adams were nominated for writing the song, but she was too nervous to perform the song on stage. Cole, however, withdrew from the broadcast due to illness, and Dion was hired to sing in his place. Streisand sat in the audience and enjoyed the moment when Michael Kidd, the choreographer of her 1969 film. Hello Dolly, he received the Oscar for Lifetime Achievement. Then, she writes, “I suddenly started bleeding. (I had more problems with endometriosis.) I quickly got up and ran to the bathroom.” She missed Dion’s performance as a result, but later apologized and told her, “We need to find a song to sing together.”
And so we have “Tell Him”. Dion begins, singing with trembling innocence about a romantic crisis, then Streisand enters, assuming the role of a wiser, stronger woman more experienced in such entanglements – a doyenne of love. The song is melodic but also somewhat histrionic. It sounds like it could be sung in Italian over a microphone. But, in short, the harmony of these two superstars is irresistible.
“Carefully taught/children will listen” (2006)
Streisand was born too late for the golden age of the American musical, but everything written by Rodgers and Hammerstein, whose scores exude lyrical sincerity, seems to connect emotionally with her. “Carefully Taught”, a song about racial tolerance, is one of the smaller songs from south pacific, but on Live in Concert 2006 album Streisand pulls it off delicately, with the lightest of dramatic punches to sell her message. “Taught” is nicely paired with “Children Will Listen” by modern music master Stephen Sondheim. Unlike many of Sondheim’s songs, whose standards tend to have an ironic edge that isn’t necessarily in Streisand’s wheelhouse, this one is sweetly anodyne, and she delivers it with rich authority.
And that’s just the tip of Streisberg.
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Source: HIS Education