Barbra Streisand ... And Other Musical Instruments

Barbra has not recorded any television special shows for CBS since 1968, when the broadcast of A Happening in Central Park was broadcast. "The reason we didn’t do a TV show for CBS for such a long time was my quarrel with Mike Dann," explained Barbara manager Marty Erlichman . Dann was the first vice president of CBS. “He never believed in Barbara’s talent. He wanted to film her in a show with Dick Van Dyke and Andy Griffith ... Our last show was a concert broadcast in Central Park , and it came out shortly before Barbara’s film career took off. Everything was ready, and Mike Dann set the broadcast date to September 12, 1968. The Funny Girl movie was due out on September 18, 1968, and I asked him to postpone the broadcast later, after the film’s premiere, as this would be an important event for both CBS and Barbra: He, however, refused to do so, and I swore that we won’t shoot anything for CBS until Mike Dann leaves his post. We were so pleased when Fred Silverman became vice president, we liked working with him. That was one of the reasons we decided to shoot a special TV show again. " .

In 1972, Barbara was actively pursuing her career in cinema, films were released. What's the matter, doc? and sandbox . Streisand also finished shooting the film What We Were , although the film premiered only in the fall of 1973. CBS has announced that Barbra will return to television for the first time in five years with a special show sponsored by Singer .

In the new show, Barbra again became the main character, as well as in My Name Is Barbra and Color Me Barbra . “About five years ago, Barbara had the idea to record an album to the accompaniment of different types of musical instruments from around the world. We did not realize this idea then, and she decided that it was a great topic for a special television show,” Erlichmen said.

Barbara's team invited Ray Charles (and his backing vocalists, The Raettes) to participate in the show, as well as world-famous tenor Romeo Berti and 11-year-old pianist Dominic Savage (Savage became famous thanks to the role of stepson of the hero Ryan O'Neill in the Stanley film Kubrick Barry Lyndon ). Bertie told the press that he was pleased to work with Barbara. "From a technical point of view, I admire the height of her voice, he is absolutely amazing. You would never be able to sing in musicals without this height. She is a great artist who is much more gifted than she thinks."

The producers, Gary Smith and Dwight Hemen , were forced to change location from the United States to the UK at the request of Sir Lew Grade , who gave them the job. The producers had to convince Barbara to shoot a show in London at Elstree Studios. Smith said: "... it was a great opportunity. The trip would be fun, the director of lighting, John Rook, was a brilliant professional, so Barbra agreed." The show cost the organizers $ 600 thousand and was prepared in ten weeks, including a week of rehearsals in New York ; two weeks of rehearsals and eight days of filming in London ; plus weeks of preparation before that.

A couple of Ken and Mitzi Welch, who wrote songs to many famous artists, including Lorne Luft , Barry Manilow and Carol Burnett , were hired to work on the musical material of the show, the theme of which was the use of a huge number of exotic musicians, instruments and styles ^{[1] [2]} . The couple had already worked with Barbra in 1962 on the Harry Moore show , when they arranged for her "Happy Days Are Here Again" in an ironic ballad style.

Preparation for filming began in the summer of 1973 at Elstree Studios. Marty Erlichman said: “We had to shoot the show in parts, because everyone was busy with other projects. We rehearsed in the USA and then flew to London. We shot the show only a few days, and soon Gary, Dwight and Joe Leighton were forced to leave for In certain circumstances, when this happened, Barbara continued to rehearse with the choreographer and go over the material for the show, it was very difficult to work under these conditions, and people associated with the show would usually never continue to shoot the way we went but everyone wanted to continue work, so we chose this path. Ray Charles was available only on July 26 and 27, so we had to stop the current shootings and work and shoot his segment. It was not easy, therefore, it took us ten weeks, like a real feature film, but I think it was worth it. "

Several reporters attended the shoot to interview Streisand. Barbara, who is actively working with her team, has been described in the articles as relentless. She told one Cosmopolitan reporter: “Since you are here now, I don’t have lunch with the director or producer. I don’t discuss filming or technical issues that we will continue to work on for the next seven or eight hours. Everything that goes into those hours are and always will be my show and part of my life. What can I say about the interview? Distributing the interview does not help advance work. "

The shooting of the Ray Charles segment, performing three songs, lasted from eight in the morning until nine in the evening, for each song several doubles were shot. Ray Charles sang the song "I Can Make It Through The Days (But Oh Those Lonely Nights)" that evening, although it was ultimately not used in the show. For the concert segment, Barbra and her team planned to perform the following songs: "What Are You Doing The Rest of Your Life?", "Better", "Do Me Wrong" and "The Way We Were".

In the show Other Musical Instruments , people from the Barbra team were also involved. Joe Leighton, who had directed the previous Barbara special shows and produced the show, appeared during the "Glad to be Unhappy" issue in a kabuki costume. And the long-standing Streisand manager, Marty Erlichmen, appeared in the final issue of "The World is a Concerto" in the small role of operator of a washing machine.

The premiere of the show Barbra Streisand and Other Musical Instruments took place on November 2, 1973 at CBS. His recording was not available on physical media until 2005, when the show was published on DVD . The show's support album included recordings of all numbers performed during the television show, with the exception of "Sing / Make Your Own Kind Of Music", "Look What They've Done To My Song Ma", "Crying Time", "Sweet Inspiration / Where You Lead "and" On A Clear Day You Can See Forever ". The album was released on CD in 1989 with a remastering of Joe Gastworth, after which the album was never re-released on CD.

The album debuted on the Billboard 200 chart from 146th place on November 11th, 1973, and reached its peak, 64th position, on December 22nd. The album spent 16 weeks in the top 200. The album became a major failure for Streisand, remaining one of her three albums not awarded RIAA certification.

1. Piano Practicing (Lan O'Kun) - 2:27
2. “I Got Rhythm” ( Ira Gershwin , George Gershwin ) - 1:24
3. Johnny One Note / One Note Samba ( Lorenz Hart , Richard Rodgers , Antônio Carlos Jobim , Newton Mendonça , Jon Hendricks ) - 3:40
4. Glad to Be Unhappy (L. Hart, R. Rodgers) - 2:43
5. People ( Bob Merrill , Jule Styne ) - 1:51
6. Second Hand Rose ( Grant Clarke , James Hanley ) - 0:16
7. “Don't Rain on My Parade” (B. Merrill, J. Styne) - 3:41
8. Don't Ever Leave Me ( Oscar Hammerstein II , Jerome Kern ) - 0:41
9. Monologue - 0:46
10. “By Myself” ( Howard Dietz , Arthur Schwartz ) - 1:54
11. Come Back to Me ( Alan Jay Lerner , Burton Lane ) - 1:38
12. “I Never Has Seen Snow” ( Truman Capote , Harold Arlen ) - 5:07
13. Lied: Auf Dem Wasser Zu Singen ( Franz Schubert ) - 1:32
14. “The World Is A Concerto” / “Make Your Own Kind Of Music” (Ken Welch, Mitzie Welch, Barry Mann , Cynthia Weil ) - 4:02
15. “The Sweetest Sounds” (R. Rodgers) - 2:55

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