Barbra Streisand’s Release Me to be Released
Barbra Streisand’s private music vault holds all the master tapes she’s recorded for five decades. Now, she’s sharing 11 previously unreleased songs, spanning a cross-section of her career from 1963 to the present.
The collection, titled Release Me, will be available on vinyl (Tuesday, September 25) and on CD (Tuesday, October 9).
Streisand has released more than 60 albums. Many of the sessions for these albums yielded extra recordings, which weren’t included on the albums they were intended for. They’ve all been stored in her vault until now.
Over the past year, Barbra has gone through the recordings to come up with this collection, Release Me.
Highlights include: “Didn’t We” written by Jimmy Webb – recorded in 1970 for an unreleased album project titled The Singer; the standard “Willow Weep For Me” – an unreleased track recorded in 1967 for Simply Streisand, arranged by Ray Ellis noted for his legendary work with Billie Holiday; A striking version of Randy Newman’s “I Think It’s Going Rain Today,” with Barbra on vocals and Newman on piano – from the 1971 Stoney End sessions; an unreleased studio version of “With One More Look At You” from A Star Is Born; Two tracks from the unreleased sequel to the acclaimed The Broadway Album, titled Back To Broadway – “Home” (from The Wiz) and “How Are Things In Glocca Morra ? / Heather On The Hill” (from Finian’s Rainbow / Brigadoon).
Reflecting on the album, Streisand noted, “The thing I’m happiest about is that I still have great affection for all these songs. They appealed to me at the time…and still do. Listening now, I actually think to myself, ‘The girl wasn’t half bad.'”
With the exception of two songs where the original masters couldn’t be located, all the tracks on Release Me were transferred from first generation master tapes. Every attention was paid to preserving the sonic perspective of the sessions as they were originally recorded and mixed, says Columbia Records.
Barbra Streisand has received 10 Grammys—including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement and Grammy Legend Awards—51 gold albums, 30 platinum albums, and 13 multi-platinum albums.
Barbra Streisand is the only artist ever to receive an Oscar, Tony, Emmy, Grammy, Directors Guild of America, Golden Globe, National Medal of Arts and Peabody Awards as well as France’s Legion d’Honneur and the American Film Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
She is, in fact, the recipient of 2 Oscars, 5 Emmys, 10 Grammys, a Tony and 12 Golden Globes including the Cecil B. DeMille Award. She is also the first female film director to receive the Kennedy Center Honors. The three films she directed received 14 Oscar nominations.
