My Name Is Barbra

• Artist: Barbra Streisand
• Rating:
• Release Date: 1965 05
• Genre: Vocal Music

Review

An album containing many of the songs used in Barbra Streisand's TV special of the same name, My Name Is Barbra followed the general outline of two of the three sections of the show. The first side was a concept set of songs about childhood and growing up that allowed Streisand, in the songs "I'm Five" and "Sweet Zoo," to take a comic approach for the first time in several albums. The second side was a set of adult songs performed in Streisand's big, dramatic style. "I Can See It," her third borrowing from The Fantasticks, was the best yet, and Streisand's first attempt at a Gershwin tune, "Someone to Watch over Me," was at least a qualified success. "I've Got No Strings," from the movie Pinocchio, was no "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" (one of the highlights of her debut album), but it wasn't bad. And best of all was Streisand's reading of "My Man," Fanny Brice's signature song, though it had not been used in Funny Girl, the Broadway show about her life, in which Streisand had starred. After this demonstration, however, it would be interpolated into the movie version. (My Name Is Barbra won a Grammy Award for Best Female Vocal Performance.) ~ William Ruhlmann, Rovi

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