Barbra Streisand's private music vault holds all the master tapes she's recorded for five decades. There are all the first takes, the published recordings, and all the bonbons which made up the 4 CD set Just for the Record in 2003.
Now, she's sharing 11 previously unreleased songs, spanning a cross-section of her career from 1963 to the present. The collection titled, Release Me will be available on vinyl (yes, vinyl) on September 25 and CD on October 9.
Streisand has released more than 60 albums, and many of the sessions for these albums yielded extra recordings, which weren't included on the albums they were intended for. They've all been stored in her vault until now. Over the past year, she has gone through the recordings to come up with this collection.
Highlights include: Didn't We written by Jimmy Webb – recorded in 1970 for an unreleased album project titled The Singer; the standard Willow Weep For Me – an unreleased track recorded in 1967 for Simply Streisand, arranged by Ray Ellis noted for his legendary work with Billie Holiday; a striking version of Randy Newman's I Think It's Going Rain Today with Newman on piano – from the 1971 Stoney End sessions; an unreleased studio version of With One More Look At You from A Star Is Born; two tracks from the unreleased sequel to the acclaimed The Broadway Album, titled Back To Broadway – Home (from The Wiz) and How Are Things In Glocca Morra?/Heather On The Hill (from Finian's Rainbow/Brigadoon).
Streisand says of the album,
The thing I'm happiest about is that I still have great affection for all these songs. They appealed to me at the time… and still do. Listening now, I actually think to myself, ‘The girl wasn't half bad.'
With the exception of two songs where the original masters couldn't be located, all the tracks on Release Me were transferred from first generation master tapes. Every attention was paid to preserving the sonic perspective of the sessions as they were originally recorded and mixed.
Here's the complete track listing:
- Being Good Isn't Good Enough (from Hallelujah, Baby!)
- Didn't We
- Willow Weep For Me
- Try To Win A Friend
- I Think It's Going To Rain Today
- With One More Look At You (from A Star Is Born)
- Lost In Wonderland
- How Are Things In Glocca Morra? / Heather On The Hill (from Finian's Rainbow/Brigadoon)
- Mother And Child
- If It's Meant To Be
- Home (from The Wiz)
Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.
His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times magazine.
