My Name is Barbra (1965)

Marty Erlichman and Barbra Streisand spent January and February 1965 assembling a team to put together Barbra’s first television special for CBS.  By March, they had signed Richard Lewine as producer, Dwight Hemion to direct, and Joe Layton to stage the musical numbers. Peter Matz continued his excellent work with Streisand as the show’s musical director, and CBS scheduled the special to air on April 28, 1965.

Barbra entered the recording studio on February 1, 1965 to record three songs from Mickey Leonard and Herbert Martin’s upcoming musical, The Yearling (which opened December 10th, 1965 at the Alvin Theatre and closed after only three performances. The Yearling was based on the Pulitzer winning novel about a boy and his pet fawn by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings.) Streisand had already recorded their song “I’m All Smiles” for the People album.  But when Marty Erlichman asked them to contribute material for the TV show, and when Barbra heard the tunes, she recorded them all!

“We rehearsed up at her apartment,” Leonard said. “Bob Mersey, her record producer, asked me who I wanted to arrange and conduct.  I said I wanted my hero, my guru, Don Costa.  Barbra didn’t know him, but Bob Mersey did, and said, ‘You’ve got him.’”

Costa had made a name for himself creating arrangements for Frank Sinatra and Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gormé, as well as a romantic, sweeping chart for Sarah Vaughan’s recording of “Snowbound” (which Streisand utilized later on her Christmas Memories album).

“Why Did I Choose You” was sung as a duet in The Yearling (“Why Did You Choose Me”), so Leonard and Martin altered the lyrics to serve Barbra’s solo rendition.  Barbra also requested switching two words at the song’s climax.  The original lyric was “And when I lost my heart so many years ago I lost it willingly and lovingly …” Leonard explained that “‘willingly’ is a closed sound, a very difficult word to sing up high; so she said, ‘It’s too hard, it’d be better if I switched the words and sang ‘lovingly’ at first.’ And that’s the way she did it.”

Barbra also recorded two versions of the same song at this session – “My Love” and “My Pa.”  Martin wrote new lyrics for Streisand to sing (“My Love”), which also universalized the song. Barbra performed “My Pa” as a child would.  Incidentally, “My Pa” was cut from The Yearling during out-of-town tryouts.

Barbra’s TV special, My Name is Barbra, was taped in New York in March and April 1965. 

My Name is Barbra was broadcast on April 28th, and Columbia Records was running newspaper ads for the album, which hadn’t been completed yet. “Place your order now for Barbra Streisand’s exciting new Columbia album,” the ads announced.  Then, below the temporary cover artwork, “See Barbra tonight” and the air-time and local network station My Name is Barbra would air on. 

Streisand returned to the studio two more times to record songs for the Columbia soundtrack album – two days before and two days after the TV show aired on CBS.

Columnist Earl Wilson told his readers, “Barbra Streisand’s album, ‘My Name is Barbra,’ is a rush job – it hits the stand a week after being recorded.”

Wilson’s column was accurate – ten of the songs were recorded the week before the album came out.  On Saturday and Sunday, May 1 and 2, Columbia’s engineers edited the album. Demo copies were messengered to Columbia and Barbra Streisand on Monday morning, May 3.  The albums were then rushed to record stores later that day.

“We truly set a record for speed on that album,” said Warren Vincent, Columbia’s editing supervisor. “We worked nonstop for seventy-two hours.”

Out of the twelve tracks on the My Name is Barbra album, only seven appeared on the actual TV show.  

In fact, before the age of CDs and digital music, My Name is Barbra, the LP, had an “intermission” between side one and side two.  Side one ended Barbra’s sequence of childhood songs with the bitter-sweet “Where is the Wonder.”  Listeners would walk over to their record player and flip the album over to side two. The hopeful, up-tempo “I Can See It” began the second side, which contained six songs an older girl/woman would sing.

It's unclear whose idea it was, but Streisand managed to release two My Name is Barbra albums between May and October 1965 (My Name is Barbra ... Two was the sequel). What’s genius about the My Name is Barbra albums is that Marty Erlichman probably knew CBS would repeat the TV special six months later and Barbra could, therefore, release two different albums duirng the months that the special aired.

Although Barbra had been singing the song  “My Name is Barbara”  in her nightclub act for two years, this is the first studio recording she made of it.  Leonard Bernstein wrote the song as part of his 1943 cycle I Hate Music: A Cycle of Five Kids Songs for Soprano and Piano. (Streisand also sang another song from the cycle in her act – “I Hate Music.”)  “My Name is Barbara” was not a piece of specialty material written for her (and the extra ‘a’ is included in ‘Barbara.’)

Roger Perry and Johnny Melfi wrote a Broadway musical called Nothing Can Stop Me Now. James Darren sang one of the songs from the show—“A Kid Again”—in his Cocoanut Grove act. Barbra Streisand was in the audience that night and told Perry and Melfi she'd like to record it. (She also recorded “I Like Him” — written for the same show).

Barbra sang “I'm Five” during the childhood sequence as she sat in an oversized chair. Milton Schafer wrote the words and music for this song which was recorded by Danny Kaye on a 1958 Capitol Records album for children called Mommy Gimme a Drinka Water.

Songwriter Carol Hall wrote “Jenny Rebecca” as a gift for a friend who had just had a baby. Cabaret singer Mabel Mercer began performing it in her act, and Barbra recorded it for this album.

“Sweet Zoo” was written by Jeffrey Harris – Barbra’s first off-Broadway show was Harris’ Another Evening With Harry Stoones.  

Dion McGregor and Michael Barr presented Streisand and her manager, Marty Erlichman, with “Where is the Wonder” back in 1962. She finally recorded it for this album. 

“I Can See It,” by Tom Jones (lyrics) and Harvey Schmidt (music), was from the long-running musical The Fantasticks. Streisand recorded four songs from their score (“Soon It's Gonna Rain" and "Much More" on The Barbra Streisand Album; and a phrase of "Try To Remember" on Color Me Barbra.)

Streisand included the Gershwin’s standard “Someone To Watch Over Me” as well as the Disney song from Pinocchio, “I’ve Got No Strings” on the album – both were new songs not sung on the TV special.

Barbra's version of “If You Were the Only Girl in the World” altered the lyric from Girl to Boy. It was written in 1916 by Nat Ayer and Clifford Gray.  Again, this one was not on the TV show.

Barbra's recording of “My Man” appeared for the first time on My Name is Barbra. The song became a signature song for her after she performed it so movingly in the Funny Girl movie. Maurice Yvain wrote “Mon Homme;” J. Charles and A. Willemetz wrote the French lyrics; Chaning Pollack wrote the English lyrics. The song was renamed “My Man” when Fanny Brice recorded it in America in 1921. Billie Holiday and Edith Piaf recorded their own versions of the song.