A Love Affair With Barbra Streisand

With the upcoming release of Barbra Streisand Encore: Movie Partners Sing Broadway Songs, here is a look at why we love Barbra Streisand and her work.

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It is the eve before Barbra Streisand’s new album is released. All around the world, girls are anxiously awaiting to listen to Babs once more. Or, at least I am. My love of Babs started when my father saw A Star Is Born playing on TV when I was 5 years old. Kris Kristofferson and her flooded my screen and captured my heart. To this day, I have yet to see the original film because I love this one so much. Granted, I had to look up who the love interest in that movie was because the only person I remembered was Barbra.

Every loud child who loves musicals should be introduced to Barbra Streisand and my mother knew that. So, she let me watch Funny Girl. Fanny Brice defines any girl who is told she’s just funny. But Fanny is not her defining role. Now, most people remember Babs from The Way We Were. 

The movie is the sad story of Katie and Hubbell, showing the decline of their love. While it’s not a musical, Barbra still sings the title song and has featured it on many of her albums she’s released since.  But it is her performance as Katie that brings tears to the eyes of viewers.

But the one thing that people know her for is her voice. It seems to have no limit to its range. It reaches into our souls and takes hold of us. We continually listen to the beauty of her register and pray that one day, we can all ascend into the Heaven that Barbra’s voice has created for us. (None of this is dramatized. It is all true and if you don’t agree, you’ve never listened to a Barbra song.)

Barbra now focuses most her time on music and writing. She consistently releases albums and is currently on tour.

Recently, her albums feature duets with some of our favorite stars including: Hugh Jackman, Chris Pine, Jamie Foxx, Alec Baldwin and even Bradley Cooper. The highly anticipated Barbra Streisand Encore: Movie Partners Sing Broadway Songs came crashing into our knowledge when “At The Ballet” was released on Spotify, drawing the attention of Daisy Ridley and Anne Hathaway fans.

It is common for stars of Barbra’s magnitude to make albums like this. However, this encore album comes with the knowledge that Barbra chose men who are typically deemed as ‘hotties’ in the Hollywood scene. Barbra has the capacity to sing love duets with all the hot men we wish we could and she’s taking all the chances she can. She very intelligently chose people that would bring a younger generation to her work. The great thing about it is that Barbra is returning to her theater roots with this album and singing Broadway classics. She’s even mashing up songs like “I’ll Be Seeing You/I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face”.

With both songs released, it is clear that this album may be Barbra’s best yet. It appeals to the younger audience while also bringing us back to the classics. Especially since the most recent song on the album is “At The Ballet” from the 1975 musical A Chorus Line.

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Check out Barbra Streisand Encore: Movie Partners Sing Broadway Songs out on August 26^th, 2016. It is available for pre-order at Amazon.