Barbra Streisand Happy Days Are Here Again

"Happy Days Are Here Again"

Composed by Milton Ager (music) and Jack Yellin (lyric); arranged past George "The Fox" Williams.

Recorded past Barbra Streisand for Columbia Records in October of 1962 in New York.

The story: Barbra Streisand was born in Brooklyn, New York on April 24, 1942. Brooklyn remained a part of her personality long later on she left it, first to enter evidence business in Manhattan, and and so to get onto an enormously successful career as a singer, extra and movie-maker. Growing up in Brooklyn, she learned the quick reactions ane has to have to be successful onstage. Despite the fact that she possesses a voice that comes along very rarely, and amazing musical instincts that she seems to take had since she was a child, her career as a performer became more than successful only after she was able to talk with and joke with the audiences she blew away with her singing. It humanized her, and enabled audiences to know that at the cadre of her being, she was merely a girl from Brooklyn. "Brooklyn to me means the Loew's Kings, Erasmus (Hall High School), the yeshiva I went to, the Dodgers, Prospect Park, great Chinese food. I'1000 so glad I came from Brooklyn — information technology's downwardly to earth." (At correct: Barbara, as she was so known, with (I call up) her older brother Sheldon – 1952 in Brooklyn.)

Barbara attended Erasmus Hall High School from 1956 to January 1959, when she graduated at age 16. She excelled at her studies likewise as singing while in high school. One of her classmates and friends at Erasmus was Neil Diamond. (Beneath – Barbara'southward moving-picture show in her high school year volume – 1956.)

She moved to Manhattan soon subsequently leaving loftier school, and scuffled, trying to break into show business. The twelvemonth 1959 was ane during which Barbara worked at menial jobs, slept on the couches of friends, and made the rounds of casting offices. Her primary objective was to go an actor, not a singer. She took a job as an usher at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater for The Audio of Music early in 1960. During the run of the play, she heard that the casting director was auditioning for more singers, and information technology marked the first fourth dimension she sang in pursuit of a job. Although the managing director felt she was not correct for the function, he encouraged her to brainstorm including her talent as a singer on her résumé when looking for work.

She asked her so boyfriend, Barry Dennen, to record her singing. Dennen constitute a guitarist to accompany her: "We spent the afternoon taping, and the moment I heard the first playback I went insane … This nutty niggling kook had one of the nigh breathtaking voices I'd e'er heard … when she was finished and I turned off the machine, I needed a long moment before I dared wait up at her." (ane)

She then duplicated the tapes so she could give copies of them give to possible employers as demos. Dennen grew enthusiastic, and in the spring of 1960 he convinced her to enter a talent competition at the Lion, a gay bar in Greenwich Hamlet. There, she performed two songs in the contest, after which there was a "stunned silence" from the audience, followed by "thunderous applause" when she was pronounced the winner. She was invited back and sang at the club for several weeks without pay, but with audiences. It was during this fourth dimension that she dropped the second "a" from her starting time name, switching from "Barbara" to "Barbra."

In the summer of 1960, Streisand auditioned at the Bon Soir, a nightclub on 8th Street in Greenwich Village. She got the gig there, which paid $125 a week. Information technology was her first professional engagement every bit a singer. In the club'southward evidence she was the opening act for comedienne Phyllis Diller, who was the headliner. She later on recalled that was the offset fourth dimension she had been in that kind of "costly" environment: "I'd never been in a nightclub until I sang in one." During her run at that venue, she became something of an secret sensation in Greenwich Village.

She discovered that her ironic Brooklyn sense of humor was received favorably by her audiences, so she began inserting light-hearted comments, e'er with a hip Brooklyn edge, between songs. During the next half-dozen months actualization Bon Soir, she began to get noticed by mainstream media. Newspaper reporters and columnists began comparing her singing vocalisation to those of Judy Garland, Lena Horne and Fanny Brice. Her ability to charm audiences with spontaneous humour during performances became more sophisticated and professional. Theater critic Leonard Harris wrote: "She's xx; by the time she'due south thirty she will have rewritten the tape books." Past late in 1960, Barbra Streisand'southward career was beginning to take-off.

With the help of her new personal director, Martin Erlichman, she had successful engagements in Detroit and St. Louis. Erlichman then booked her at a more than upscale nightclub in Manhattan, the Blue Angel on e 55th Street, where she continued to excite audiences during the flow from 1961 to 1962.

In early 1962 she participated in the Columbia Records bandage recording of the Harold Rome Broadway evidence I Tin Go It for You Wholesale. This recording was produced by the president of Columbia Records, Goddard Lieberson. Lieberson was a well-schooled musician who had worked his fashion up to the presidency of Columbia from the position of A and R man, where he started in 1939. Although his accomplishments at Columbia Records were manifold, his particular favorite activity was in introducing cast recordings of Broadway shows to the pop music market on LP records, which started in the early 1950s. He loved every attribute of doing this, including acting as producer at the recording sessions. In social club to ensure a constant flow of new material for Columbia Broadway cast recording LPs, Lieberson also pioneered in having Columbia Records invest in promising Broadway musical shows. (Above right: Goddard Lieberson and Barbra Streisand at the signing of her first contract with Columbia Records.)

During one of the recording sessions for theI Tin can Become Information technology for You lot Wholesale album, which took place at Columbia'south 30th Street recording studio in Manhattan, with dozens of musicians and singers participating, the smooth menstruation of the session was interrupted when a relatively unknown Barbra Streisand "stopped in the middle of her song, 'Miss Marmelstein,' because she didn't like the orchestration. Lieberson, who produced the session, stepped out of the control booth, took her aside, and quietly only firmly got her to sing the song as written."(ii) This inauspicious meeting was the commencement between Goddard Lieberson, president of Columbia Records, and Barbra Streisand. Merely she did meet him, and afterward that interaction, he definitely knew who she was.

As ane would expect, Lieberson, though he couldn't assistance but to appreciate Barbra's singing, was less enchanted with her behavior in the recording studio on that date. At age xix, she clearly had huge talent as a singer, and the ancestry of an artistic temperament to match. Nevertheless, Lieberson showed no inclination to have whatever interest with Barbra Streisand'due south singing career.

Only every bit president of Columbia Records, Lieberson was at the epicenter of the pop music business then, and increasingly, various people were coming to him with the same recommendation: sign Barbra Streisand NOW! Somewhen, Lieberson agreed to attend one of Barbra's performances at the Bluish Angel. Her singing "…knocked him to the canvas. 'It takes a big man to acknowledge a mistake,' Lieberson told Barbra'due south manager Marty Erlichman, 'and I fabricated a fault. (Now) I would similar to record Barbra.'"(three) Barbra Streisand signed with Columbia Records on October 1, 1962.

The music:

The song "Happy Days Are Here Again" was equanimous in 1929 for the One thousand-G-One thousand pic Chasing Rainbows. In May of 1962, Barbra Streisand appeared on The Garry Moore television receiver bear witness. During a segment called "That Wonderful Twelvemonth," in a skit gear up in the twelvemonth 1929, Barbra performed "Happy Days Are Here Again" ironically every bit a millionaire who has just lost all of her money and enters a bar, giving the bartender her expensive jewelry in commutation for drinks. She sang the song, which was usually done at a medium or upward tempo, at an insinuatingly tedious tempo. Her functioning built dynamically to an explosive finale, and immediately became an audience-pleaser during the early phase of her career.

Streisand get-go recorded "Happy Days Are Here Once again" in October 1962 at Columbia'south 30th Street NYC studio, some months before her first album sessions. This version, arranged and conducted by George "The Trick" Williams(shown below left) (three), became Streisand's first commercial single in November 1962, with the Harold Arlen/Ted Kohler standard "When the Sun Comes Out" on the B side. Only 500 copies of this single were pressed for the New York market, and no copies were sent to radio stations. Nonetheless, the record flew off the shelves of the record stores where information technology was available for purchase. This 1962 version was re-released equally a single in March 1965 every bit part of Columbia'south "Hall of Fame" serial.

This beginning recording of "Happy Days Are hither Again" past Barbra Streisand is the 1 where we hear her estimation of the song at its purest. She sings the song's verse, accompanied but by sparse piano chords, and so goes into its offset chorus as well an any jazz performer, past entering deliciously after the downbeat. The quality of her voice, her phrasing, range and passionate interpretation ready the standard of what she would do as a singer over the next five-plus decades. The diminuendo from the climactic note, which starts with Barbra in full voice, and which she masterfully reduces to a whisper, is 1 of many thrilling moments in this functioning that make information technology clear that this was no ordinary vocalist.

Streisand re-recorded the song in January 1963 for her debut Columbia LP album,The Barbra Streisand Album, the music for which was arranged and conducted by Peter Matz.

Barbra sang the song contrary Judy Garland, who performed "Get Happy," during an October 1963 circulate of The Judy Garland Show on television receiver. That functioning was recorded and was showtime included on Streisand'southward 1991 box set Only for the Record, and so once again on her 2002 Duetscompilation.

In June of 1967, Streisand performed the song for over 135,000 people in Primal Park That recording was released as a part of the live concert albumA Happening in Central Park.It was later rereleased on the compilationsBarbra Streisand's Greatest Hits,andThe Essential Barbra Streisand.

The song has become a signature role of Streisand's concert repertoire, and she has performed it live on numerous occasions. I was fortunate enough to her sing information technology at a concert in her dwelling boondocks Brooklyn in 2013, and she stopped the show with it, equally always.

(2)The Label …The Story of Columbia Recordspast Gary Marmorstein (2007), 320-321

(3) George Dale Williams (1917-1988) was born in New Orleans simply grew up in California. He studied at Chico State Higher from 1934 to 1937. His outset involvement with a swing band came in 1939, when he began working for bandleader Bob Astor as pianist and arranger. In early 1940, Williams began submitting arrangements to Jimmie Lunceford. Later that twelvemonth, he wrote much of the initial library for Lionel Hampton'southward starting time big band. In 1941, Williams worked as trumpeter Sonny Dunham'south pianist and sometimes arranger. In 1942, he began placing some arrangements and originals with Glenn Miller. From 1943 to 1946, Williams was in military service (Merchant Marine). From 1946 until 1950, Williams acted essentially as Gene Krupa's banana, writing arrangements and doing many other musical tasks. In the early 1950s, he worked for Ray Anthony. By the mid-1950s, Williams was a successful costless-lance arranger and conductor in Manhattan. He had a long association with comedian and would-be musician Jackie Gleason from the mid-1950s through the 1960s, writing many of the arrangements for Gleason's highly successful mood music albums. He caused his nickname "The Play tricks" as a result of an original composition past that name that he wrote for Ray Anthony, which was recorded and successful.

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