Q&A: Streisand’s discards get an album of their own
NEW YORK— Back in the day, if Barbra Streisand made one vocal error or found one problem while recording a song, she’d toss the whole thing. “If I didn’t like that one word, I wouldn’t release the record,” the 70-year-old said in a recent interview. “Because in those days . . . we did take one, take two, take three. We made albums in three days. Twelve songs. We didn’t have this digital way.” Now, because of her perfectionism, she has a case full of unreleased material and she’s decided to share it with the world.
Release Me, a collection of songs she recorded in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, was released Tuesday. It also includes the new song “If It’s Meant to Be,” written by her longtime friends and collaborators Alan and Marilyn Bergman, recorded last year. Besides the new album, Streisand is readying another duets album and launching a U.S. tour on Thursday in Philadelphia, with an Oct. 23 date at the Air Canada Centre. She talked with The Associated Press.
Q: How’s does it feel to finally release this music?
A: It feels liberating. It’s really interesting because I don’t listen to my records after I make them. I am so sick of them because you have to listen to them over and over, in a car, with good speakers, bad speakers. I get so sick of it that I never hear anything. But I had this black case in my house for so long called “Unreleased songs.” Listening to some of them again I thought, “God, I was hard on myself.”
Q: How many songs are in that black case?
A: I have another album or two . . . I really wasn’t aware of how many things I had in there, between films and videotapes and TV shows. I actually never (have) been to my vaults, can you imagine? I just see them in pictures.
Q: What would Barbra now say to Barbra back then?
A: Be easier on yourself. A lot of these things were done in one take; we don’t have a choice and I didn’t want to fix it. I didn’t want to go in and fix things.
Q: What can people expect from the tour?
A: A lot of songs I’ve never sung live before. Some songs I wrote, even. I wrote a song in A Star Is Born — “Evergreen” became the hit — but not the other song, “Lost Inside of You,” that I wrote with Leon Russell, and now we just recorded it for the duets album. Haven’t picked who’s going to sing the duet yet. But it’s really cool. I’m working with Babyface . . . (Babyface) is fantastic. I hope people can sing as good as him because . . . he’s just fabulous.
Q: Are there any contemporary musicians who are impressing you?
A: I haven’t had time to listen. When I finish an album like Release
Me and now working on the duets album, believe me, I never turn on the radio. I only listen to news, something that concerns the whole country and world.