Butterfly Album 1974

Streisand / Discography

Butterfly (1974)

Butterfly original album, LP cover. Scan by: Kevin Schlenker.

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  • ABOUT THE ALBUM
    • Released October 1974
    • Produced by Jon Peters 
    • Arranged by Tom Scott, Lee Holdridge, and John Bahler 
    • Art Direction & Design: Jon Peters
    • Cover Photo: Carl Furuta 
    • Inside Photos: Steve Schapiro 
    • Back Cover Painting: Bill Shirley
    • Barbra Streisand: Background Vocals
    • Max Bennett: Bass
    • Tom Scott: Woodwinds
    • Ben Benay: Guitar
    • Clarence McDonald: Keyboards
    • Larry Carlton: Guitar
    • John Guerin: Drums
    • King Errisson: Congos
    • Gary Coleman: Percussion
    • Tom Scott: all flute & tenor sax solos

  • CATALOG NUMBERS
    • PC 33005 (LP, 1974)
    • 1R1 6275 (Reel-To-Reel Tape)
    • PCA 33005 (8-Track Tape)
    • PCT 33005 (Cassette)
    • PCQ 33005 (Quadraphonic LP, 1974)
    • CK 33005 (CD)
  • CHARTS
    • Debut Chart Date: 11-16-74
    • No. Weeks on Billboard 200 Albums Chart: 24
    • Peak Chart Position: #13
    • Gold: 1/6/75

    Gold: 500,000 units shipped

    Platinum: 1 million units shipped


    The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine.

Tracks

  • Love In The Afternoon [4:05]

    Written by: B. Weisman, E. Sands, R. Germinaro


    Arranged by: Tom Scott


    Engineered by: Hank Cicalo


    Recorded July 1974 at A&M Studios, Los Angeles

  • Guava Jelly [3:15]

    Written by: Bob Marley


    Arranged by: Tom Scott


    Vocal Arrangement by: John Bahler


    Recorded July 1974 at A&M Studios, Los Angeles

  • Grandma's Hands [3:24]

    Written by: Bill Withers


    Arranged by: Tom Scott


    Vocal Arrangement by: John Bahler


    Engineered by: Hank Cicalo


    Recorded July 1974 at A&M Studios, Los Angeles

  • I Won't Last A Day Without You [4:16]

    Written by: Paul Williams, Roger Nichols


    Engineered by: Michael Lietz


    Remixed by: Hank Cicalo


    Recorded March 25, 1974 at Western Recording, Los Angeles

  • Jubilation [3:52]

    Written by: Paul Anka, J. Harris


    Arranged by: Tom Scott


    Vocal Arrangement by: John Bahler


    Engineered by: Hank Cicalo


    Recorded July 1974 at A&M Studios, Los Angeles

  • Simple Man [3:01]

    Written by: Graham Nash


    Arranged by: Tom Scott


    Engineered by: Hank Cicalo


    Recorded July 1974 at A&M Studios, Los Angeles

  • Life On Mars [3:10]

    Written by: David Bowie


    Arranged by: Tom Scott


    Horns & Vocal Arrangement by: John Bahler


    Engineered by: Hank Cicalo


    Recorded July 1974 at A&M Studios, Los Angeles

  • Since I Don't Have You [2:52]

    Written by: Lenny Martin, Joseph Rock, J. Taylor, James Beaumont, J. Vogel, W. Lester, J. Verscharen


    Arranged by: Lee Holdridge


    Engineered by: Michael Lietz


    Recorded March 25, 1974 at Western Recording, Los Angeles

  • Crying Time [2:51]

    Written by: Buck Owens


    Arranged by: Lee Holdridge


    Engineered by: Michael Lietz


    Recorded March 25, 1974 at Western Recording, Los Angeles

  • Let The Good Times Roll [4:54]

    Written by: Shirley Goodman, Leonard Lee


    Arranged by: Tom Scott


    Horns & Vocal Arrangement by: John Bahler


    Engineered by: Hank Cicalo


    Recorded July 1974 at A&M Studios, Los Angeles

About the Album

An ad for Barbra's Butterfly album.

Butterfly marked a change in Barbra Streisand’s career when the man she was dating – Jon Peters – began taking a bigger role in her recording and movie projects.  Peters, in fact, produced Butterfly.  And almost from the get-go, gossip columns and entertainment writers had an opinion.


Jon Peters, age 29, was a hairdresser who owned and ran three hair salons in Los Angeles with his uncle Adolf Pagano and business partner Paul Cantor.  His $100,000 a week income and a client list that included Jacqueline Bisset and Anne Bancroft made him a successful man. Peters first met Barbra in August 1973 when she requested that he style a short wig that she would wear in her movie, For Pete’s Sake.  Jon, separated from wife Leslie Ann Warren (and soon divorced from her), began dating Streisand.  As love blossomed, Peters and Streisand were spotted together often in public in 1974.


Then in June of 1974, newspapers reported that “Jon Peters will produce the new Barbra Streisand album scheduled for a September release.  The album, which will include several songs of the ‘50s, will also feature a cover designed by Peters.”


Barbra told Aaron Gold she originally suggested a list of show tunes for the new album that “no one was particularly thrilled about.” Then she and Jon selected new material that they worked on for the next several months.


The first selection of songs chosen did not materialize into usable tracks: “You Light Up My Life” by Carole King; an R&B song called “Type Thang,” written by Isaac Hayes for the movie Shaft’s Big Score; “On Broadway” by the songwriting team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller (which was a big hit for George Benson); and “Everything Must Change” by Benard Ighner Benard.


Later, Streisand recorded Ighner’s song for her 1997 album, Higher Ground.  And the studio version of “You Light Up My Life” finally surfaced on Barbra’s 2021 album, Release Me 2.  


The rest of the album sessions took place in March and July 1974.
A double-page ad for Streisand's album, Butterfly.

Butterfly Recording Sessions: 


 

  • March 25, 1974 — Western Recording, Los Angeles
  • Crying Time
  • Since I Don’t Have You
  • I Won’t Last a Day Without You
  • A Quiet Thing / There Won’t Be Trumpets ( not used; released on Just For the Record )
  • God Bless the Child (not used; released on Just For the Record )
  • Produced by: Jon Peters
  • Arranged & Conducted by: Lee Holdridge

 

 

At this point, Columbia Records’ president Bruce Lundvall asked Charles Koppelman (head of A&R) to interfere. Enter Gary Klein.


“I was a staff producer for CBS,” Klein told Billboard , “and Charles Koppelman of the Entertainment Company asked me to talk to Barbra and Jon Peters about Butterfly … Both Charles and I didn't think it was up to Barbra's standards, and he wanted me to go out to California, sit down with them and tell them why.


“It was very difficult to meet her for the first time to criticize an album that her boyfriend – who is sitting right there – had produced. But I went over the album cut by cut, and I was very specific about what I thought was wrong with it, and they knew that I knew what I was talking about, so I gained their respect.”


Veteran recording engineer, Al Schmitt, was brought in to remix the recordings. Schmitt quit after three days – and he spoke to Los Angeles Times Entertainment columnist Joyce Haber about it late-June 1974. “They've recorded seven or eight songs for this new LP,” Schmitt explained. “Columbia played them, and they were unhappy with what they heard. Barbra always gives me goosebumps: She has that incredible sound. This album has a flat, one-dimensional sound. It needs to be opened up. It needs climaxes.”

Jon Peters and Barbra Streisand in the recording studio, 1974.
But Schmitt’s biggest complaint was Peters. “Essentially Peters wants all the money, and I’d be doing all the work.”

Reportedly, music contractor Kathy Kasper also did some last-minute work on the album by bringing in several new songs and rescoring some of the tracks that were deemed unusable. 

Koppelman then spoke to Joyce Haber in her follow-up column to explain his position. “Schmitt went in to listen to the album. He came out and said it wasn’t right. He told Jon he wanted to co-produce with him. Obviously, he was upset because he was going to be on the gravy train. He told Peters, ‘I’ve been in the business 25 years and you’ve been in it 25 minutes.’”

Barbra called up Joyce Haber, too. “Is Schmitt trying to imply that I’ve given up my career for Jon Peters?” Barbra asked. “This is possibly the best singing I’ve ever done. It’s the most open, the most free, the most happy.”

Barbra explained further to Haber: “From a sound point of view, Columbia may have wanted more amplification. You can have 100 mixers on one song. Schmitt did three cuts. I didn’t like them. I wanted this soft, then rising.”

Streisand returned to the recording studio in July – this time with Tom Scott providing arrangements for seven songs. He accomplished this task in four days. “She did more songs in less time than she’s ever done,” Scott said. 

Streisand herself said Scott was “terrific to work with. Rhythm is normally very difficult to lay down, but with Tom it was definite, clear and unified.” 

“Jon [Peters] was very receptive and gave me lots of freedom,” Scott said. ‘We cut the album very quickly, for Streisand, because I planned everything so carefully and was able to give them the reasons for everything I wanted to do musically.”

Jon Peters and Barbra Streisand in the recording studio, 1974.
Peters, Streisand and Tom Scott in the studio.

July 18, 19, 22, 1974 — A&M Studios, Los Angeles

  • Guava Jelly
  • Grandma’s Hands
  • Jubilation
  • Simple Man
  • Love in the Afternoon
  • Let the Good Times Roll
  • Life on Mars

Produced by: Jon Peters

Arranged & Conducted by: Tom Scott


Why title the album Butterfly? 


“During our courtship,” Barbra explained, “[Jon] came on the set one day with a beautiful diamond-and-sapphire butterfly, just really my taste, and that’s hard to do. And then a week later he gave me this hundred-year-old Indian butterfly and it was just something ….


“The reason we’re calling it Butterfly is that when we first met he said I reminded him of a butterfly.”


Columbia finally released Butterfly October 1974. Reviews were mixed; most mentioned Jon Peters’ influence and questioned why he was pictured in so many of the photographs that appeared on the album’s foldout.


Columnist Shirley Eder reported that Butterfly cost about $158,000 to complete. “Tony Bennett told me he brings his albums in for about $5,000 each,” Eder wrote.


Columbia smartly affixed a sticker to the back cover of the album so that record stores would display the album with William Shirley’s illustration of Streisand facing forward, instead of the stick of butter with a dead fly.


Whatever the behind the scenes drama was, Butterfly is an interesting part of Streisand’s recording history.


Karen Swenson wrote, “Placed in its proper context, one can see that with Butterfly Barbra started to find a tone and an approach to pop music which allowed her to function with a minimum of affectation and artifice.  Her vocals are amazingly relaxed.”

“The new Streisand album is ‘Butterfly’ and the worst thing about it is the icky cover with a fly atop a stick of butter. It is the album the gossips said would be a big mistake for Miss Streisand because her hairdresser and boyfriend Jon Peters was the producer.


As usual the gossips were wrong and ‘Butterfly’ is one of Streisand’s most diverse and appealing albums.


Miss Streisand seldom has shown so much versatility so successfully before. There are reggae with Bob Marley’s ‘Guava Jelly,’ soul with Bill Withers’ ‘Grandma’s Hands,’ spacy rock with David Bowie’s ‘Life on Mars’ and a haunting version of ‘Love in the Afternoon.’ In addition to these fine songs, she also does well with Paul Williams’ ‘I Won’t Last a Day Without You’ (which is closest to the old Streisand style), Paul Anka’s ‘Jubilation’ and the country standard, ‘Crying Time.’”



“Playback” by Tom Von Malder. Wheeling Herald, November 15, 1974

The Songs

A billboard advertising the Butterfly album on Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles.

“Love In The Afternoon” — Husband and wife writing team Evie Sands and Richard Wiseman joined forces with Ben Germinaro – he wrote over 50 tunes for Elvis Presley – and the trio wrote a string of songs in the mid-1970s, including this one. Sands also recorded her own version of the song for her 1974 album Estate of Mind.


Written by Bob Marley, “Guava Jelly” is a “moderate reggae” song. (Guava jelly, by the way, is made from delicious guava fruit and is the Jamaican equivalent of peanut butter.) 


Cayman Music published sheet music for “Guava Jelly” but the art direction looked behind the times – they used a 1967 photo of Barbra and spelled Bob Marley's name incorrectly – “Bob Morley.”


Musician Bill Withers wrote “Grandma's Hands” as a tribute to his grandmother, Lula Galloway. He recorded it for his 1971 debut album Just As I Am.


“I Won't Last A Day Without You” was a big hit for the Carpenters. Songwriting team Roger Nichols and Paul Williams tinkered with the bridge for Karen and Richard Carpenter. “It was kind of a sore point with me,” Nichols said, “because [Richard] changed the melody in the bridge and the chord structure. After that, other people heard our version of the song—like Barbra Streisand and Diana Ross—and they all recorded the version as we had written it.”


Paul Anka (“My Way” and “The Tonight Show Theme”) wrote “Jubilation” – in 1978 he even owned a disco and restaurant in Las Vegas named “Paul Anka’s Jubilation.”


“Barbra can sing the phone book.  She has no problem singing anything,” Anka said after Barbra recorded his song.


Graham Nash (of Crosby, Stills & Nash) wrote “Simple Man” after his breakup with Joni Mitchell. Streisand changed the lyrics from “man” to “girl” for Butterfly.


David Bowie wrote “Life On Mars” in 1971 for his Hunky Dory album. (Bowie, by the way, told Playboy magazine that Barbra’s version of his song was “Bloody awful. Sorry, Barb, but it was atrocious.”)

Quadraphonic Album

Quadraphonic recordings were embraced by audiophiles from about 1971 to 1978. A Quadraphonically encoded recording split the sound between four speakers – similar, but less effective than the 5-speaker “surround sound” available on DVD theater systems today. It was necessary to own a Quadraphonic (or “Quad”) stereo system to decode the recording (although standard 2-speaker stereo systems would still play the Quads—without 4-channel separation, though). Quadraphonic recordings were available on vinyl, 8-track tape, and reel-to-reel formats. 

The master tapes for Streisand's Quadraphonic albums were all remixed for the format. Therefore, if one were to compare a song from a Quad album to a song from a non-Quad album, the Quad version might differ considerably. Sometimes the Quad engineers used a completely different vocal take than what appeared on the standard LP.


Butterfly has the most alternate tracks of any of Streisand’s Quad albums:


  • Barbra’s beautiful background vocals are much more present in the Quad remix of “Love in the Afternoon.” Also, the awkward vocal edit at 2:35 on the CD is not present on the Quad version.
  • “Guava Jelly” — alternate vocals.
  • “Jubilation” – alternate vocals.
  • Again, Barbra’s background vocals on “Simple Man” have been remixed and sound more forward than on the CD.
  • “Life on Mars” is a completely different take. I like this version much better – the effects on Streisand’s vocal are not present on the Quad remix, which sounds much better to my ears.
  • “Since I Don’t Have You” – alternate vocals.
  • “Let the Good Times Roll” is a different mix.


Singles

Columbia Records released the following singles from the album:



Front and back covers of the Quadraphonic Streisand album Butterfly.

Album Cover

Jon Peters designed the Butterfly album cover, using a fly on a stick of butter. Butter-fly! “I just threw it out,” he said, “and this is where Barbra is totally insane. I said butter and a fly – Butterfly. She said, ‘Great!’ And that was it. The front cover was done.”

Carl Furuta was the photographer hired to create the cover image of the Butterfly album. “It had to be a dead fly,” he recalled, “so we had to go to a garbage can and put a bag over a fly and let him suffocate to death. Then you had to spread out his wings and his feet with tweezers. We went through a lot of flies. And maybe the butter melted under the lights. But to me it was just another job.”
The cover of the reel-to-reel tape box had a closer crop on the fly and stick of butter.

End / Butterfly album 1974 / NEXT ALBUM ....

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