Back in 1962, Columbia Records recorded three live nightclub shows by a little-known young singer. Two years earlier, the then 18-year-old with the op shop clothes and powerful voice had entered a talent competition at New York’s Lion nightclub and won, which afforded her a few nights’ appearance. Afterwards, the act was picked by the Bon Soir, a small but trendy underground nightclub in New York’s Greenwich Village that hosted acts such as comedian Phyllis Diller.
She went on to become something of a household name: Barbra Streisand.
Barbra Streisand at the Bon Soir, where she recorded an album that, thanks to new technology, now has a new lease on life. Barbra Archives
“When I auditioned,” the singer told Playboy in 1977, “I forgot that I had gum in my mouth, so I took it out and stuck it on the microphone and it got a big howl. Then I started to sing. They liked it, but they thought I was going to be a comedienne. When I went off the stage, Larry Storch, who was the headliner there, said to me, ‘You’re gonna be a star’. Like in the movies! And Tiger Haynes’ girlfriend, whose name was Bea, came over to me and said, ‘Kid, you got dollar signs written all over you’. I’ll never forget it. I was wearing my antique vest, my antique Twenties shoes with butterflies on them, and I just looked at her.”
The restored album, Barbra Streisand: Live at The Bon Soir, released this November, 22. barbrastreisand.com
The shows became a local sensation. “The Bon Soir has swung into the new nightclub season with the find of the year,” wrote the New York World-Telegram in 1960. “She is Barbra Streisand, a Brooklynite whose voice and poise belie her scant eighteen years. Vocally, there’s range and power; stylewise, there appears to be a natural gift for musical comedy, but she handles with aplomb the most meaningful ballads.”
Streisand’s debut studio album, which features a photograph of Streisand singing at the Bon Soir.
Two years later, Columbia Records came calling. The tiny Bon Soir, however, turned out to be a less-than-ideal recording space and the 24 live tracks that Streisand had laid down were too muddy to use. Instead, Columbia sent Streisand into the studio to record her eponymous debut album, which became a Grammy Award winner.
Now, 60 years later, to mark Streisand’s anniversary with the label, the recordings have been masterfully restored thanks to new technology. Barbra Streisand: Live at The Bon Soir, which is out now, reveals a young singer with a soaring voice who is by turns funny, chatty and a unique interpreter of long-lost material who follows no rule book: a jazz take on children’s song, Who’s Afraid of the Big, Bad Wolf sits beside a reimagined Cry Me a River, in which the singer tears strips off an ex-lover. Taylor Swift would be proud.
