Streisand / Early Demos

Barry Dennen was Barbra Streisand's friend and mentor who served as a collaborator when she was putting her act together in New York nightclubs around 1960. 

After they appeared together in an off-Broadway play called The Insect Comedy, Barbra reached out to Dennen for a favor:  she had an audition with Eddie Blum, the casting director for Rodgers and Hammerstein, who wanted to hear a recording of her singing.  Dennen had an Apex reel-to-reel tape recorder, so Streisand asked if he would record her.

“She had a voice the microphone loved—and everybody else loved it, too,” Dennen wrote. “I was really the man who insisted that she sing, who gave her the support and encouragement and help that she needed, and I put together and directed her first nightclub act for her.”

Dennen recorded Streisand many times during this period, including her live performances at the Lion and the Bon Soir nightclubs.  

In 2009, Dennen auctioned the tapes he still possessed, so fans finally learned what actually existed of these early Streisand performances. 

HOME RECORDINGS 

• A Taste of Honey
• Two Brothers

These songs were probably recorded in 1960 at Barry Dennen's home at West 9th Street in New York City’s Greenwich Village.

“Two Brothers” is probably the Irving Gordon folk-Civil War song, written in 1951.

Barbra was accompanied by guitar on these songs.

REHEARSAL AT THE BON SOIR

• Chez Moi (Jimmy Daniels)

Jimmy Daniels was the host of the Bon Soir who introduced Streisand to the audience. Daniels, a handsome café singer in his day, sometimes sang a number or two at the Bon Soir microphone.

For the 2009 auction, Dennen wrote: “I was setting up the microphones to record her first appearance at the Bon Soir and I turned the tape on at the rehearsal. I liked this song and wanted a recording of it. You can clearly hear Barbra, waiting her turn to rehearse, humming a counter melody.”

STREISAND AT THE BON SOIR

This recording was made at the club on September 17, 1960.

• Spoken Intro—Jimmy Daniels
• Keepin' Out of Mischief Now
• A Sleepin' Bee
• I Want to Be Bad *
• When Sunny Gets Blue
• Lover Come Back to Me
• Nobody's Heart Belongs to Me
• Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?

* Words & Music by: B.G. DeSylva, Lew Brown and Ray Henderson

DETROIT RADIO SHOWS 

Streisand appeared on two local radio shows while playing the Caucus Club in Detroit, Michigan in 1961. She was on The Jack Harris Show (2/24/61 and 4/14/61) as well as Guest House, Detroit (2/28/61). These are recordings of Streisand’s songs from those radio shows.

• A Taste of Honey
• Cry Me A River
• Sleepin’ Bee
• Lover Come Back to Me
• When the Sun Comes Out
• Soon It's Gonna Rain
• Moanin’ *
• Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?

* Dennen probably meant “Moanin’ Low,” a song that Streisand sang in her early career, then finally recorded in 1975.

The auction of Dennen’s tapes at MomentsInTime.com had a starting bid of $1 million dollars – an exorbitant amount. “I’m a little trepidatious,” Dennen told the New York Post. “I don’t know what the fallout will be. I don’t like upsetting Barbra, and I don’t want her fans angry at me.”

The truth is that the tapes had always upset Barbra ever since she asked Barry Dennen for them back in 1965 and he refused to hand them over. “They are the only thing I have left of our collaboration,” he told her at the time.  Over the years, Dennen would play some of the songs for Streisand fans at conventions he was invited to. When Marty Erlichman tried to negotiate with Dennen to get the tapes for Barbra’s retrospective, Just For the Record, Dennen failed to come to an agreeable compromise.

The only comment about the auction of the tapes came from a Streisand spokesman who said, “Our lawyers are dealing with this.”

Ultimately, the tapes never sold. Barry Dennen passed away September 26, 2017. 

In April 2007, Heritage Auctions put a 10-inch 45-rpm acetate demo up for auction that featured two songs sung by Barbra Streisand.  According to the website, the demo was “one of only ten that were manufactured in the early ‘60s; eight were sent to record companies and are no longer believed to exist, one went into Barbra’s vault, and this one was given by her to a friend who's kept it in pristine condition for the past four decades.”

That “friend” was Don Softness, who did publicity for Streisand around 1961.

The Fine Recording demo had Streisand (with what sounds like a trio backing her) singing “Have I Stayed Too Long at the Fair,” and, on the flip side, “Come to the Supermarket (in Old Peking).”

Fine Recording studios were located at 118 West 57th Street, New York. It was probably Marty Erlichman who arranged to have these songs recorded so he could shop Streisand around to potential record companies.

Heritage Auctions’ website indicates the acetate demo did not sell.

Streisand auditioned for RCA Records in March 1962.  She recorded nine songs for them, accompanied by Marty Gold on piano, who was described as “one of RCA’s yeoman house arrangers.”  Marty Gold recruited new talent for RCA and was disappointed that the label turned Streisand down.

The audition record was pressed on a 12-inch acetate and auctioned on ebay around 2002.

Side A:

A Sleepin' Bee

Have I Stayed Too Long at the Fair

When the Sun Comes Out

A Taste of Honey

At the Codfish Ball (take 1) 

At the Codfish Ball (take 2)

Side B:

Lover, Come Back to Me (take 1)

Lover, Come Back to Me (take 2)

Bewitched

I Had Myself a True Love

Soon It's Gonna Rain

The demo includes Barbra's version of a song Shirley Temple sang in a film called Captain January. Written by S. Mitchell and L. Pollack, “At the Codfish Ball” has never been officially recorded by Barbra —although she confessed she considered recording a medley of Shirley Temple songs for 2003's The Movie Album.

Streisand also sang a different lyric on this demo for the song “I Had Myself A True Love.”

She sang, “Where is he? With that gal in that damned ‘ol saloon.” One year later at the Bon Soir—and then on The Third Album—Barbra sang instead: “Where is he? Has he gone so soon?”