Columbia 9015
Producer: Robert Mersey
Track listing: Absent Minded Me / When in Rome (I Do as the Romans Do) / Fine and Dandy / Supper Time / Will He Like Me / How Does the Wine Taste? / I’m All Smiles / Autumn / My Lord and Master / Love Is a Bore / Don’t Like Goodbyes / People
October 31, 1964
5 weeks
It’s only appropriate that Barbra Streisand became a pop music superstar thanks to her role in the Broadway musical Funny Girl, since it was largely because of her performance in such musicals as I Can Get It for You Wholesale and Pins and Needles that Streisand landed a recording contract with Columbia in 1962.
Despite failing to yield a hit single, The Barbra Streisand Album, the singer’s 1963 debut album, established Streisand as a hit recording artist, as it reached number eight. The Second Barbra Streisand Album, also released in 1963, fared even better, peaking at number two. The Third Album, which peaked at number five, was one of three hit albums featuring Streisand that were released in 1964.
Streisand was cast as Fanny Brice in the Broadway musical Funny Girl in 1963. The original cast recording, which reached number two, was released by Capitol in the spring of 1964. It was Columbia, however, that issued Streisand’s rendition of “People,” the Bob Merrill-Jule Styne tune from the musical, as a single. It became Streisand’s first hit, reaching number five.
In order to capitalize on the success of Funny Girl and “People,” Columbia assembled an album around the hit single. On the album, Streisand was accompanied by pianist Peter Daniels. Peter Matz, who worked on Streisand’s first two albums, handled the arranging on conducting on six of the songs, with Ray Ellis, who worked on The Third Album, arranging and conducting the other five.
“We did the single first,” Matz says. “Barbra was rehearsing Funny Girl when we did ‘People’ and we had to do it rather quickly, because they wanted to get the song out before the show went on the road. To this date, there remains a wrong note on the French horn part, but we didn’t have time to fix it.”
For other material, Streisand turned to another Merrill-Styne composition, “Absent Minded Me,” along with “I’m All Smiles,” from the Broadway musical The Yearling, and Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “My Lord and Master.” As stipulated in her contract with Columbia, Streisand choose her own material. “She was extremely creative,” says Matz. “She had a lot of input about the shape of the songs.”
Her voice was also in top form at the time. “She was singing with a lot more passion then,” says Matz. “She wasn’t so concerned about perfection. She was into more of an emotional performance.”
Thanks largely to the success of the single, People rose to the top in its fifth week on the chart, knocking the Beatles A Hard Day’s Night from Number One. It would be the first of several times that Streisand would reach the summit.
THE TOP FIVE
Week of October 31, 1964
1. People, Barbra Streisand
2. Everybody Loves Somebody, Dean Martin
3. A Hard Day’s Night, The Beatles
4. Something New, The Beatles
5. How Glad I Am, Nancy Wilson