BARBRA C'est Mon Nom

Original released on LP Columbia CL 2547

(US, October 1966)

Released two months after the Beatles' "Revolver", Barbra Streisand was upping her game. This was not just another cabaret singer as time would confirm. This is Streisand's first collaboration with Michel Legrand, the first of many. "Je M'Appelle Barbra" is an album of songs with a French orientation, either because they are actually sung, at least in part, in French, or because they originated in France before having English lyrics added. Streisand does not embarrass herself in French, but the album is more an experiment than a triumph. (in AllMusic)

BARBRA STREISAND: "People"

Original released on LP Columbia CS 9015

(US, September 1964)

After two less successful albums, Barbra Streisand returned to form on her fourth album, "People", with a selection of songs that showed some of the imagination of her debut album. Much of the material was new. The album opened and closed with songs by Jule Styne and Bob Merrill, first "Absent Minded Me," and then the Top Ten title song that was the hit from Streisand's triumphant Broadway show, "Funny Girl". Streisand introduced Cy Coleman and Carolyn Leigh's "When in Rome (I Do as the Romans Do)," a lively song that allowed her to display some of the spirit and humor that had been missing on her last two outings. And when picking from older songs, she again found obscure or atypical tunes from prominent composers or lost gems she could make her own. In the former category were Irving Berlin's "Supper Time," a blues song unlike any the composer had ever done, and "My Lord and Master," from Rodgers & Hammerstein's "The King and I". In the latter was the delightful "Fine and Dandy," from the 1930 show of the same name, with music by Kay Swift. Add in some obvious choices like Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn's "Love Is a Bore" (a companion to the previously recorded "Down with Love") and "Don't Like Goodbyes," another selection from Harold Arlen and Truman Capote's "House of Flowers", from which Streisand had earlier picked "A Sleepin' Bee," and you have an album fashioned to play to the singer's strengths and musical tastes instead of trying to fit her into existing ones. That wasn't quite enough to match the quality of her debut album, but it was a definite improvement over the second and third albums. ("People" won Grammy Awards for Best Vocal Performance and Best Album Cover.) (William Ruhlmann in AllMusic)

BARBRA JOAN STREISAND

Original released on LP Columbia KC 30792

(US, August 1971)

On her follow-up to the comeback album "Stoney End", Barbra Streisand tried to do for (or to) Carole King what she had done the last time around with Laura Nyro, to redo her material in a similar manner and essentially hijack it (while providing a big jump in songwriter royalties, of course). This was not so easy to do in the case of "Beautiful," "Where You Lead," and "You've Got a Friend," however, since, unlike the Nyro songs, by the time Streisand got to these tunes, they were already on King's own chart-topping album, "Tapestry". Nevertheless, Streisand, who after all is a much more powerful singer than King, did them well and even eked out a Top 40 single on "Where You Lead." And the album contained other gems, such as a delicate reading of John Lennon's "Love" (a take on his "Mother" was far less successful) and the only recording of "I Mean to Shine," written by Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, soon to launch Steely Dan. Streisand was not able to make the final transition into the pop/rock realm for the simple reason that she wasn't a writer, but she had spent a career making other people's songs her own, and she was as effective doing that here as she had been on very different material in the '60s. (William Ruhlmann in AllMusic)

BARBRA STREISAND: "What About Today?"

Original released on LP Columbia CS 9816

(US, July 1969)

"What About Today?", Barbra Streisand's '69 album, was her initial, frankly unsuccessful encounter with the pop music revolution of the 1960s. The songs were by Paul Simon, Lennon/McCartney, Bacharach/David - not exactly hard rock, but apparently beyond the ken of Streisand, who employed her usual armory of belting and shtick, all to no avail. Her usual arrangers, Peter Matz, Don Costa, and Michel Legrand, succeeded in turning some excellent contemporary material into Las Vegas schmaltz and glitz, and Streisand sang the songs the same way. She was laughably unable to comprehend the work of her own peers. Streisand was actually younger by a year or two than Paul Simon and John Lennon. She sang as if she was old enough to be their mother. (William Ruhlmann in AllMusic)

"The Way We Were" By BARBRA STREISAND