The pandemic rained on a lot of our parades, but of all people, Barbra Streisand has never been guilty of giving up at the first sign of trouble. With plans to record new material sidelined by the quarantine, the legendary singer-actress-director turned to her substantial archives to pull together a new album for fans in 2021.
Release Me 2 – a sequel to the acclaimed 2012 rarities compilation Release Me – is out today (Aug. 6) on Columbia Records and Legacy Recordings. The 10-track album includes delightful duets (Willie Nelson, Barry Gibb and even Kermit the Frog), selections from some of the greatest songwriters ever (Bacharach/David, Randy Newman, Carole King), and a never-before-heard recording from a pre-fame session in 1962.
Teaming with trusted studio collaborators such as Jochem van der Saag and Walter Afanasieff, Streisand retooled a number of shelved recordings for Release Me 2, oftentimes reworking “limp” or “flat” orchestrations that hampered otherwise lovely vocal performances spanning the decades.
Talking to Billboard just ahead of the album’s release, Streisand provided a peek into her thought process as she dug through her vaults to deliver these archival gems. She also gave us an update on her long-gestating memoir, when we can expect new recordings, and teased an upcoming cinematic rarity that will soon sneak its way out of her archives and into our lives.
Release Me 2 is such a treat. I want to start with the first song, “Be Aware,” which is an unheard studio version of a song you sang on TV with Burt Bacharach back in 1971.
Isn’t that interesting? I had to really look back in my memory and realize we did that studio version, only as a way to listen to the orchestration. Because when I looked at it on TV you couldn’t even hear it. You couldn’t hear my voice or the orchestra, and it’s a beautiful orchestration. And it’s so relevant to today. Which is why I wanted to start the album with it.
Were these songs that you had always wanted to get back to fixing at some point?
No, no, no. It’s ’cause I didn’t record an album of new songs. I’m making a list of what I want to sing, but I couldn’t go back because of COVID – with the musicians, and it’s hard to sing with a mask on, right? We revisited (old recordings), my A&R man and I. I remember “You Light Up My Life” distinctly because I liked the song in the early ’70s, but I couldn’t get the right orchestration [on the 1974 recording]. It just was flat, so I never put it out. Now, I have a wonderful engineer like Jochem van der Saag, who is able to add in instruments without a musician in the room. He can do it. It’s incredible. I said, “we’re missing congas, bring in that marimba,” and it sounds like a different tune. But it’s the same wonderful song and I was happy with my vocal in the early ’70s, it’s just that the orchestration was limp. And now I’m really happy with it.
“Right As the Rain,” which appeared on 1963’s The Second Barbra Streisand Album, is also here, but in a different version from 1962. What didn’t gel about that first recording that made you re-do it?
Something with the orchestration I think, and my voice. I’m still not completely happy with that one, so I redid it with [arranger/conductor] Peter Matz on the second album. It was interesting to hear again. It’s a different thing – it’s not my favorite song on (Release Me 2). I mean, I love the song, but I’m not that happy with my vocal.
Even so, that’s impressive that so early in your career, you knew exactly what you wanted and to push back on what you didn’t like.
Yeah, “I think it needs different chords here and there” and so forth. My manager Marty Erlichman, who’s been with me since I was 19, he got that for me. I just knew I had such distinct visions for things, especially songs. That was an argument I had with Stephen Sondheim when we did The Broadway Album [in 1985]. I said, “the vision is not only visual, it’s what I hear, it’s aural, an aural vision.” And I don’t read music. I never had that kind of education. I just rely on my ears, and if something sounds wrong, it feels wrong to me. Some of those songs we did two and three arrangements until it felt right. I write a lot about that in my book, the process behind the work. (This is) the book I’m writing now that was supposed to have been ready several years ago. But it’s not ready yet.
You’re still working on it?
It’s very hard to write about myself. I don’t enjoy looking at the past. I like to be in the present and think about the future. I was asked to write a book 30, 40 years ago and I said no. But when you can’t get a movie made because you have no control over who’s gonna finance it, this is a private endeavor. I can do this and I have full control over it. I was very fortunate when I did my certain movies; even though technically I wasn’t in full control, it was a wonderful thing to work for First Artists in the early ’70s. When Freddie Fields named the company First Artists – it was me, Steve McQueen and Sidney Poitier — we had final cut of our movies. You know what that felt like? A Star Is Born, that was popular, but the first one I did [for First Artists, Up the Sandbox] was about women’s rights and abortion. It was a dangerous subject, but I had the right to make it.
I like to be in control. I had control over Yentl, The Prince of Tides and The Mirror Has Two Faces. I had control over all my television specials and records. That’s what Marty was able to do for me at first. They can’t tell me I can’t make a classical album. But they did tell me, when I did my Broadway album, “That won’t count for your deal, it’s not a pop album.” You always have to audition after 24 years with the company! They said, “it won’t count unless it sells two and a half million copies.” Thank God it did. I was so happy. Because I love – that’s my initial love – Broadway songs that have a complete three-act play for the character to sing. For me as an actress, it was what I loved to do. A song like “If I Loved You” [from Carousel]; what an interesting lyric. It’s about a shy girl not wanting to say goodnight or that she loves him, but, “I would say that and do that if I loved you.” It’s brilliant. It’s hard to find those songs today. That’s why I go back to my vault.
You also have a Randy Newman song on Release Me 2, “Living Without You,” recorded in 1971. You were singing his songs before he broke big.
[Producer] Richard Perry introduced me to him, and I don’t think he was very well known when he sat in my apartment in New York City and played for me. I thought his songs were so original and quirky. And I loved him. He’s a very interesting person. I recorded a few of his songs. I just changed a bit of the chord structure [on “Living Without You”] with Walter Afanasieff, who I’ve worked with many times as a producer and arranger. He wrote the music for Walls — he’s very gifted — and also “Sweet Forgiveness.” Beautiful melody writer.So I hear your vault is just floor-to-ceiling, stuffed with material. How many songs do you think you have in there?
How many? My God. I have also movies — all the outtakes of A Star Is Born and some of the other movies — and I have pictures. All my recordings. I re-edited A Star Is Born [in 2018 for Netflix]. I was in control of it, and I think like a director, so I cut myself out [of the 1976 version] playing the guitar when I first wrote “Evergreen.” I thought, “let’s move the movie faster and get right to the helicopter shot.” And then I thought about it all these years and thought, “maybe I’ll put that back in.” And I did it for Netflix, where it played for three months before the new version of A Star Is Born came out. And I also had rock n’ roll shots that were never used. When we previewed the movie in Arizona, people seemed to love the one take of the eight minutes I sang the last song. So I left it that way. But I thought, “let me try to edit, just the ending to go into his rock n’ roll style and become more like him at the end.” It’s interesting to look at your work many years later. I like having an updated version of certain movies. There’s one I’m working on now, but I can’t say the name of it.
Is it a movie you directed?
Not necessarily, just something I’ve always thought should be in there. It was cut out and it’s very important to the movie’s reality. But I can’t talk about it yet. My dear Willie Wyler, who directed me in Funny Girl, he always went back and re-edited his films. Of course, he was a great director and a great friend. I admired him so much.
You mentioned wanting to record new material – are you eying studio time in the near future?
I was about to figure out how to do three songs I really want to sing, and then this new COVID thing happened because people are not getting vaccinated. It’s insane. I was really looking forward to giving the fans some new material and I don’t know how I’m going to do it now. If more people get vaccinated, I can go back into the studio.
You hope people will, but some are dragging their feet.
They’re dragging their feet for no good reason. It’s just common sense. Science is real. Climate change is real, it’s not fake news or a hoax. Too many people have died by thinking science is a hoax. I want everybody, for their own health and their family’s health, to get vaccinated. Please?
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