Caucus Club 1961 Detroit

Streisand / LIVE 

The Caucus Club (1961)

150 W. Congress Street
Detroit, Michigan

March 2—April 2, 1961
April 6—15, 1961
July 17—August 12, 1961
Photo of Barbra Streisand at Detroit's Caucus Club

The Caucus Club, located on the ground floor of the Penobscot Building in Detroit, had dark paneling and brass sconces. Streisand—18 years old at the time—began working with a manager (Ted Rozar) in November 1960 (they signed a three-year contract). Aso around that time, Barbra secured a talent agency and agent (Irvin Arthur of the Associated Booking Corporation).


Les Gruber, a restaurateur in Detroit, recalled, “Back in early 1961, Irvin Arthur, a New York agent called me. He said, ‘I’ve just heard a girl at an amateur show at Bon Soir and I think she'd be good for you.’ I have a lot of faith in Arthur’s taste. He knew what we were looking for in youngsters to work the Caucus Club. Everyone he sent me was what he said.”


Ross Chapman, publicist for The Caucus Club, remembered what he described as the near fiasco of hiring Streisand: “We told her she had four spots to do at the Caucus and she'd need at least 11 numbers. I asked how she was going to learn seven or eight numbers by nine that night—her first show. She looked me right in the eye and said, ‘‘I’m a fast learner.’ Matt [Michaels, pianist] rehearsed her until eight, when he had to go to work. He got her up to 10 songs. By the time she left Detroit, she knew 80 songs.” [Note: this sounds like a publicist's exaggeration.)


When Streisand returned to Detroit to perform concerts in 1994, Caucus Club pianist Matt Michaels told a journalist his memories of Barbra in 1961: “We worked three or four hours every day until we had a repertoire going. She worked hard. I cannot say she was not one of the most ambitious girls I'd ever met. She was. She'd work in front of a mirror, developing her performing style. She was going to do whatever it would take to make it.”


“She was like a ten-year-old in Detroit,” said her friend Bob Schulenberg to biographer René Jordan. “She went to see Mae West and she went horseback riding and took her first driving lessons.”


Years later, in 2013, Streisand confessed: “I just found the letters that I wrote my mother when I was 17, 18, my first job away from New York City after the Bon Soir. So I was 18 years old, and I was giving her a list of songs to get the sheet music to, some—you know, Harold Arlen, I loved Harold Arlen.”
Caucus Club newspaper ad with Barbra Streisand listed

Barbra, was housed at Detroit's Hotel Wolverine at Elizabeth Street, one block east of Woodward Avenue during her run at the Caucus Club, staying in room 308, according to her correspondence. Barbra added “Soon It’s Gonna Rain” from the Broadway musical The Fantasticks to her repertoire. The Detroit nightclub definitely gave Barbra her first taste of life on the road outside the comfort zone of New York.


In a letter to her friend Barry Dennen (who was spelling his first name “Barré” at the time), she explained her Detroit experience. First she revealed she was writing the letter while waiting for a matinee performance of the British comedy team Flanders & Swann, who were appearing at Detroit’s Shubert Theatre in the middle of a 12-city U.S. tour. Barbra wrote about her Caucus Club experience: “After ‘opening’ to an audience of eleven glass clattering, chattering people, I was going to come home on the next train...”  She continued, noting the positives of the experience: “I like living in a hotel. It's fun! Yesterday I did two radio shows which were a ball. They want to hold me over here, but I don't know if I will stay. Taxis here are very expensive. They start their meters at 40 cents and it's 10 cents each click. This place is good for trying out new material. I do four shows a night and the place is a restaurant and not meant for entertainment. Most of the time it's very noisy when I sing and I have a lot to learn about functioning under these conditions ... ‘Lover, Come to Me’ does very well here and I'm trying to find an up song like that, Barré — if you have another minute or two would you look through my stand dance guide for something to replace ‘Lover’ ??”  Barbra finished the letter with a P.S.: “I haven't been late once!”


In postcards to Barré, Barbra wrote about her act. “After singing ‘Taste of Honey’ with piano I realize it doesn't work — can't touch ‘yours’ — please do me a favor (said with a Yiddish accent) & write out your guitar chords?”

Streisand's letter from Hotel Wolverine to Barré Dennen.

During her Caucus Club gig, Barbra flew to New York to appear on The Jack Paar Show (hosted by fill-in host Orson Bean). On air, she thanked her Detroit friends Dick Sloan and Bernie Moray for clothing her. Moray told the Detroit News in 2000, “We'd always invite Barbra over to the table, and we'd feed her,” he said. “She was just a child! She was 16 [actually 18], and I was 36. But we got to know her very well, because we were there all the time. We'd even critique her clothes. I gave her some fabrics from the store, and she'd make skirts and dresses out of them.”


It was at the Caucus Club where Streisand and Marty Erlichman schemed to get her a raise.  Marty was still now representing her — she was with manager Ted Rozar and booking agent Irvin Arthur with Associated Booking Corporation. 


Barbra wrote home to New York and Barré Dennen:


Barré — guess what — they have drug stores in Detroit. The food here is not too hot. Everything is a la carte!  A hamburger is $2.20 ... Listen to this — Ted & Irvin Arthur couldn't get me a raise — I had a couple of nice long talks with the owner — first refused to stay without a raise & got it. Told him I was fed up with both Ted & Irvin, so we agreed to to tell them — down & dirty !!! Now I know I really don't need Ted.


Marty Erlichman sensed an opening!  As he told Vanity Fair in 1991:


She was playing some club in Detroit and was only making $150 a week. She wanted $200 a week plus dinners. Her agent wasn’t helping her out, so she remembered I wanted to represent her. She called and told me her problem. ‘But I can’t pay you any commission,’ she warned me. I got on the first plane to Detroit and worked out a deal. The owners— a pair of brothers—only offered her $175 and no dinners. I told them behind her back I’d pay them the twenty-five-dollar difference if they’d throw in the dinners, which is what happened. The brothers said to me, ‘Let us get this straight. You flew here at your own expense so you could pay us twenty-five dollars and you’re not even her manager? You must really believe this girl is going to be a star.’ I sure as hell did.


It's interesting to look at the contract between Streisand and the restaurateur Lester Gruber for her gigs at the Caucus Club. It's on an AGVA (American Guild of Variety Artists) Standard Form of Artists Engagement Contract form.


On one of the contracts, dated March 1, 1961, Ted Rozar signed it with a salary for Barbra of $150 a week.


Later, when Streisand appeared at the club in July 1961, her salary was upped to $250 a week.

Detroit Free Press newspaper photo of Barbra Streisand promoting her live concerts at Detroit's Caucus Club
Close Up of AGVA contract between the Caucus Club and Barbra Streisand in 1961

The Caucus Club closed in October 2012; but in 2017, under the new ownership of restaurateur George Sboukis, the classic restaurant had undergone a full-scale remodel.


As of 2022, the Caucus Club is open for business and can be found online at: https://caucusclubdetroit.com


Below: Streisand fan B. Johnson snapped a photo of their Streisand tribute wall before the venue shuttered its doors in 2012 — the tribute wall is no longer in the restaurant, but live music featuring standards and jazz is still being played there.

The Streisand tribute wall in the Caucus Club, 2012.

“Having won smash personal reviews in the Broadway tuner ‘I Can Get It For You Wholesale’, 20-year-old Barbra Streisand returns to Gotham's intime nitery circuit with the assurance of a performer who knows that the road ahead is strictly upward. There's nothing arrogant or smart-alecky in her demeanor because of this assurance, it's just that she knows what she's about and makes the tablers aware that there's something special happening on stage. It's all done in a winning way, with an infectious jive giggle, a grimace, a wispy mood or a straightforward belt. At 20 she may be considered a show biz natural, but even if it's calculated for maximum impact, it works and that's what counts. Doubling from legit into a midtown stint isn't easy, but Miss Streisand doesn't skimp on her efforts. She does a well-planned 30-minute turn with repertoire range from winsome to wild. Her pace changes are neatly executed which gives her tuneturn a flow that keeps it interesting and enjoyable all the way. Especially good are an excerpt from Leonard Bernstein's “Songs for Children’, Harold Arlen's “I Had Myself a True Love’, a big belter like “Lover Where Can You Be’, and a humorous item salvaged from the past season's off Broadway musical entry “Another Evening With Harry Stoones’ called “I'm in Love with Harold Menkert’ *.”  [* note: “Value’]
 

... VARIETY Review, May 30, 1962
Caucus Club trade paper review
End / The Caucus Club
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