Producer Richard Perry said, “I realized when I heard the What About Today? album that she hadn’t done it yet [contemporize her sound]. But I felt very strongly that I could do it with her,” Perry said. “I told Clive Davis who was the president of Columbia Records at the time that I would very much like to have the opportunity to take a shot with Barbra. So Clive told me to get some material together, which I did. She loved the material I played for her,” Richard Perry recollected. “I brought her everything from Joni Mitchell, Randy Newman, just a real assortment of contemporary songs at its best.”

Perry and Streisand “had a bet over whether ‘Stoney End’ would be a hit,” Streisand wrote in 1991. “He said Yes, I said No. The bet was settled when we were driving on Sunset Boulevard, and a local D.J. announced on the radio that the record had just hit #1 in Los Angeles. What a great way to lose!”

It's interesting to note that Diana Ross, over at Motown Records, had recorded both “Stoney End” and “Time and Love,” which were shelved and unreleased at the time. Ross would score a hit with “Ain't No Mountain High Enough” in August 1970. 

Streisand's single of “Stoney End” was released in September 1970 and went to No. 6 on Billboard's charts.  The album Stoney End wasn't released until February 1971.