30 Years of Memories Cross Pages of Streisand’s Mind

What becomes a legend most?

When it comes to Barbra Streisand, it’s time for the ultimate record industry tribute--a four-CD boxed-set that will commemorate the songstress’s 30th year in show business. Due out Sept. 24 from Columbia Records, the lavish collection will feature more than just classic hits. Of the 80-plus songs, at least 60% of the material has never been released.

So far, the project has been largely shrouded in secrecy. Columbia execs won’t even reveal how much the box will cost, saying the label’s pricing is “confidential.” (Maybe it’s confidential because the price tag is so steep--retailers say Columbia’s suggested retail price is $79.98, the highest suggested price of any four-CD boxed set). But Pop Eye persuaded Jay Landers, Streisand’s A&R; exec at Columbia, to volunteer some highlights. They include:

* A 13-year-old Streisand singing “You’ll Never Know” in a Brooklyn recording studio.

* Streisand’s first TV appearance, a 1961 Jack Paar show in which she performed “A Sleepin’ Bee.”

* An entire set of songs from a 1962 Streisand nightclub appearance where, backed by a jazz trio, she sings such material as “Cry Me a River” and “Lover Come Back to Me.”

* A 1963 “Judy Garland Show” duet where Streisand and Garland sing a medley including “Hooray for Love,” “ ‘S Wonderful” and “You and the Night and the Music.”

* A 1969 Friars Club roast during which Harold Arlen, Richard Rodgers and Jule Styne croon their Barbra-covered songs--with new specialty lyrics paying tribute to Streisand.

* A 1976 demo for “Evergreen,” with Streisand playing the song on guitar, without lyrics, grumbling to herself about botching the chord changes.

“If someone hadn’t already taken the title, we’d have called it ‘Act One,’ ” says Marty Erlichman, Streisand’s longtime manager. “The intention of the set is to give a ‘you are there’ quality. The project meant a lot to Barbra. When we first sat down to listen to the tapes, it was a very emotional experience for her. It brought back all kinds of memories.”

According to Landers, much of the material was culled from Columbia’s vaults or Streisand’s personal collection. But other key tapes were unearthed by archivist Karen Swenson, the album’s project coordinator, who found rare tapes and TV kinescopes in the hands of private collectors.

“A private collector had one of Barbra’s ‘Tonight Show’ appearances that we couldn’t find anywhere else,” Swenson says. “And I found her ‘Yentl’ audition tapes, with her sitting at the piano with Michel Legrand, in her closet--she’d forgotten she even had them.”

Landers said he was “surprised” by the quality of material Swenson uncovered. “We have tapes of Barbra singing ‘Funny Girl’ on stage. We even have an alternate version of ‘The Way We Were,’ with completely different lyrics and music, that’s called ‘The Way We Weren’t.’ ”

The package is also adorned with a raft of rare photos and song-by-song liner notes, penned by Streisand personally. They range from her reaction to performing with Judy Garland (“She took my hand and held on tight”) to her first assertive career gesture at age 13: “The piano player kept launching into endless refrains. As soon as he started that with me, I told him, ‘No, no, we’ll just do a little interlude and then I’ll come back in.’ ”

Swenson said her biggest challenge was salvaging Streisand’s crumbling old master recordings. “We had one tape that was in such poor condition that the oxide was peeling off,” she recalls. “But we learned a neat trick--we sent it to an expert at Columbia, who baked it in an oven at 350 degrees, which somehow brought the tape back to life long enough for us to make a new copy.”

For Landers, the project--three years in the making--was worth all the work. “This isn’t a greatest-hits package at all,” he says. “You get a sense of the people and places that were important to the culture of each era. You hear Barbra singing ‘Moon River’ when Mike Wallace was hosting a TV variety show. You can even hear a young Johnny Carson introducing her, saying it’s only his fourth month on the show. For us, this was like hearing living history.”