Barbra Streisand first took the stage of New York's tiny Bon Soir on September 9, 1960.  The eighteen-year-old singer appeared third on a bill after house band The Three Flames and comic duo Tony and Eddie, and before closing act Phyllis Diller.  The groundbreaking comedienne later recalled her first encounter with Streisand: "We shared a dressing room at the Bon Soir...It was the size of a peapod and usually you could smell fear in there. But she wasn't a bit nervous - at least not that I noticed. I admit, I was unimpressed when I first met her. She was so young. She said hello, and that was it. She told me her shoes were antique and they cost her 35 cents. But then she went out and did her numbers and when she hit about the third note, every hair on my body stood up. It was unbelievable. She opened with 'Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf,' and I thought, 'Oh, my God, what a fabulous choice.'  She also sang Harold Arlen's 'A Sleepin' Bee,' which really showed off that voice. It was scary. I knew she was going places."

Diller's instinct was correct; within two years, Streisand had taken Broadway by storm as Miss Marmelstein in Jerome Weidman and Harold Rome's musical I Can Get It for You Wholesale and earned a contract with Columbia Records.  Following her initial September 9-November 20, 1960 engagement at The Bon Soir, she would return for three more stints at the club.  Her fourth and final run there (October 23-November 18, 1962) took place while she was performing nightly in Wholesale; she was, naturally, the headliner.  She would hail a cab following the Broadway performance and travel downtown to the Bon Soir stage where Bye Bye Birdie's original Conrad Birdie, Dick Gautier; Dane and Mason; and The Three Flames preceded her on the bill.  Columbia recorded three shows (November 4, 5, and 6 per Legacy's press release; November 5, 6, and 7 has long been understood) for a live album which would be her first LP for the label.  Variety reported, "Miss Streisand's stint is well worth preserving and the LP should serve as an excellent launching pad for her new career as a Columbia discer."

Ultimately, the decision was made to shelve the Bon Soir tapes in favor of a studio album recorded in January 1963.  (Every song on The Barbra Streisand Album had been sung at the Bon Soir.)  A few songs from the live shows trickled out on Streisand's 1991 box set Just for The Record... and now, over three decades after that seminal anthology, Columbia Records will celebrate 60 years of Streisand's remarkable affiliation with the label with the first official release of Live at the Bon Soir.  It's due on November 4 in multiple formats including:

• Standard CD and digital release from Columbia/Legacy;
• Hybrid stereo SACD (playable on all CD players) from Impex Records; and
• 180-gram black vinyl LP from Impex Records.

Live at the Bon Soir features the near-two dozen songs recorded on those nights in November 1962 as newly mixed from the original multitrack tapes.  Streisand was supported by the quartet of Tiger Haynes on guitar, Avril Pollard on bass, John Cressi on drums, and Peter Daniels on piano.  (Haynes and Pollard were part of the Bon Soir "house band," The Three Flames.)  When Streisand revisited her repertoire in the studio, orchestrator Peter Matz beefed up the arrangements with brass and strings, but Columbia's budget meant that he would still be arranging for relatively small combos rather than a full orchestra. The Bon Soir recordings reveal Streisand's artistry at its most intimate, with the four musicians gracefully supporting but never overpowering her singular voice and style.

Her transformative powers were obvious as she reinterpreted an eclectic set of songs, making them her own.  They were of varying vintages, from recent (Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt's "Much More" and "Soon It's Gonna Rain" from The Fantasticks (1960), Cole Porter's "Come to the Supermarket in Old Peking" (1958) from the television musical Aladdin) to decades-old (Sigmund Romberg and Oscar Hammerstein II's "Lover, Come Back to Me" (1928), Milton Ager and Jack Yellen's "Happy Days Are Here Again" (1929), Rodgers and Hart's "Bewitched" (1940) and "Nobody's Heart" (1943)).  But all were rendered in a commanding, confident, and personal style informed by an actor's instinct and brought to life in a rapturous tone.  Streisand balanced showtunes with pop ("A Taste of Honey," "Cry Me a River"), art songs (Leonard Bernstein's "My Name Is Barbara" and "I Hate Music"), and art-songs-as-showtunes (Harold Arlen and Truman Capote's beguiling "A Sleepin' Bee" from their musical House of Flowers).  The likes of Frank Churchill and Ann Ronell's 1933 "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" and Fats Waller and Andy Razaf's "Keepin' Out of Mischief Now" showcased the young vocalist's playful side.  No one had heard a singer like this.

The 2022 mixes have been supervised by Barbra and engineer Jochem van der Saag and sourced from the original master tapes engineered by Roy Halee (Simon and Garfunkel) and Ad "Pappy" Theroux.  Jay Landers provides liner notes for all formats including track-by-track descriptions and Streisand also offers her commentary.  She writes, in part, "I had never even been in a nightclub until I sang in one. I sang two songs in a talent contest at a little club called The Lion and won, which led to being hired at a more sophisticated supper club around the corner called the Bon Soir, with an actual stage and a spotlight. The buzz that began at the Bon Soir led to a contract with Columbia Records in 1962, the start of a long association that continues to this day. The initial plan for my first album was to record it at the club, and these early tapes have been sleeping in my vault for six decades. I'm delighted to finally bring them out into the light and share what could have been my debut album, Live at the Bon Soir."

The Impex vinyl edition will be housed in a tip-on gatefold jacket and includes a 12-page booklet while the hybrid stereo SACD is housed in a hardcover book-style package with 32 pages of notes, photographs, and more.

"Cry Me a River" from Live at the Bon Soir is currently streaming at YouTube and other streaming services.  The full album arrives from Columbia/Legacy and Impex Records on November 4. You'll find pre-order links and the complete track listing below!

Barbra Streisand, Live at the Bon Soir: Greenwich Village, November 1962 (Columbia/Legacy, 2022)

CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
SACD / LP: Impex Records

1. Introduction by David Kapralik (Columbia Records) / My Name Is Barbara
2. Much More
3. Napoleon
4. I Hate Music
5. Right As The Rain
6. Cry Me A River
7. Value
8. Lover, Come Back To Me
9. Band Introductions
10. Soon It's Gonna Rain
11. Come To The Supermarket (In Old Peking)
12. When The Sun Comes Out
13. Happy Days Are Here Again
14. Keepin' Out Of Mischief Now
15. A Sleepin' Bee
16. I Had Myself A True Love
17. Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered
18. Who's Afraid Of The Big Bad Wolf?
19. I'll Tell The Man In The Street
20. A Taste Of Honey
21. Never Will I Marry
22. Nobody's Heart Belongs To Me
23. My Honey's Lovin' Arms
24. I Stayed Too Long At The Fair