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ABOUT THE SHOW
The hungry i was a night club in San Francisco located in the basement of the International Hotel at Kearny and Jackson streets in the North Beach district of San Francisco. Barbra Streisand was booked to perform there in 1963 from March 27 to April 20.
Guy Vespoint's excellent article in All About Barbra magazine #37 recounted the recording of Barbra's April 1st show at the nightclub:
“Reice Hamel, who was a recording engineer, started doing some recordings at the hungry i,” guitarist Eddie Duran told Rafe Chase in a recent interview. One of the first in the Bay Area capable of first-rate remote stereo recording, Hamel offered to tape a couple of sets during one evening of Streisand's 1963 appearance at the legendary San Francisco night spot. “He had a Volkswagen bus and had all his equipment in it, had it all set up and would just lead cables from the bus to the back of the hungry i and into the room.” With her notoriety virtually guaranteed to mushroom in the ensuing months, it was speculated that a live recording could potentially augment her Columbia catalogue should her activities (namely her imminent involvement in “Funny Girl”) preclude the scheduling of studio-derived product ...
Hamel used a three-track machine in the bus and he would monitor the live session from inside the bus. Barbra was backed by:
* Daniels was Streisand's music director; the rest of the musicians were members of the hungry i house band.
ABOUT THE BOOTLEGS
Somehow, Hamel's recording was copied and in the early 1980s, a mono cassette tape of the entire show circulated among Streisand fans.
Then, around 1985, an abridged version of the same show was released on vinyl by the Bel Canto record label — Barbra Streisand—Live 1963. It is not known who Bel Canto is. The live tracks on this LP were also out-of-sequence, compared to the complete, recorded shows.
Later, in 1991, another abridged version was released on CD by Deja Vu and titled Barbra Streisand, Pre-History: The Debut, San Francisco 1963. The Italian Deja Vu label (again — who??) obviously borrowed the tracks from the LP, as you can hear obvious scratches and pops on the CD. The CD cut out most of Barbra's patter in between songs; and, again, the songs are re-sequenced.
Both the LP and the CD deleted "Who's Afraid of The Big Bad Wolf" and the orchestra reprises.
The complete show is listed below. Included in the complete recording are the wonderful asides by Barbra and a hilarious introduction of the band. (When introducing band member Benny Bach, Barbra jested, “His name is Benny. And he doesn't.” Streisand was making a word-play joke equating Bach's first name to the slang term for an amphetamine tablet (a “benny”) .... the audience howled with laughter.
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