Barbra Streisand celebrates 60 years as recording artist
MANILA, Philippines — Barbra Streisand is celebrating 60 years as a recording artist and she is doing it with album retrospectives that show her remarkable wide-ranging catalogue of recorded songs. Now 81 years old, she is also an award-winning actress, director and songwriter, but it is as a singer that she is best known and I must say loved all over the world.
To start with, there is Evergreens: Celebrating Six Decades on Columbia Records. This is no greatest hits collection. The album is made up of recordings chosen by Streisand to express her emotional connection to those melodies and lyrics, each of which holds a special place in her heart and memory.
By the way, not one of the 22 songs included has ever been featured in a compilation album. So, unless you have a copy of the original albums, this marks the first time that you will be hearing these songs.
Among those are Bewitched (Bothered and Bewildered) by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart; The Shadow of Your Smile by Johnny Mendel and Paul Francis Webster; Where or When by Rodgers and Hart; I Don’t Know Where I Stand by Joni Mitchell; I Never Meant to Hurt You by Laura Nyro; Letters That Cross in the Mail by Rupert Holmes.
Can’t Help Lovin’ That Man of Mine by Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II; Some Enchanted Evening by Rodgers and Hammerstein; Moon River by Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer; The Windmills of Your Mind by Michel Legrand and the Bergmans; Who Can I Turn To by Anthony Newley also featuring Newley; and Evergreen in a new arrangement and mix, but with Streisand’s original vocals from 1976.
Then, there is Yentl: 40th Anniversary DeLuxe Edition, which comes in two discs. One is the original soundtrack of the 1983 musical which Streisand directed and also starred in with Mandy Patimkin and Amy Irving. The other one is a collection of demo songs for the movie, taped right in Streisand’s living room with lyricists Allan and Marilyn Bergman and Michel Legrand playing the piano. Here is Streisand’s voice at its purest, heard sans the enhancements of an orchestra. She sounds fantastic.
Now those albums are not all there are to celebrate with for Streisand fans. We are talking about Streisand here, one of the most talented, most popular, most successful, most influential artists ever. Where do you think birit singing started? Remember she is an EGOT, which means, she has Emmys, Grammys, Oscars and because she comes from the theater also a Tony.
Columbia Records, Streisand’s label for the past 60 years, also came out with a compilation album, Celebrating Barbra Streisand on her 60th Anniversary with Columbia Records. The cover shows a 21-year-old Streisand, then Broadway’s hottest young actress and the most sought-after singer of the time, signing her recording contract on Nov. 5, 1962.
The Columbia collection is closer to a greatest hits package than Evergreens. This is the Barbra Streisand songbook. This is a very good choice for young people who want to know her music or are simply wondering who Streisand is. It would be fun for them to discover that she sings anything like nobody else.
Aside from the ubiquitous Evergreen, the Columbia album also includes People, Don’t Rain on my Parade, Happy Days are Here Again, On a Clear Day, Stoney End, The Way He Makes Me Feel, My Heart Belongs to Me, You Don’t Bring Me Flowers, Woman in Love, Papa Can You Hear Me, Somewhere, Children Will Listen, I Have a Love (One Hand One Heart) with Johnny Mathis, Tell Him with Celine Dion, Windmills of Your Mind, It Had To Be You with Michael Bublé, Cry Me a River, live from the Bon Soir in Greenwich Village in 1962 and other songs.
And one thing more, also out is her autobiography, My Name is Barbra, which is almost a tell-all like Britney Spears’ The Woman in Me. It is actually more exciting with more interesting characters and tales that go back 60 years culled from the memory of a great 81-year-old woman.
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