Early 1960s and youth is rocking to exciting music from radio and TV channels but this young, strange girl is not into "young music". Her ambition is to act and she consider herself an actress,singing being "too easy" for her and she does night clubs almost as afterthought, something that brings attention to the work she does on Broadway.
Everything from her unusual profile to eccentric,1920s clothes to repertoire she chooses (torch songs mixed with completely off-the-wall comedy songs) spells this is highly original artist with her own twist on american songbook - not exactly Broadway, not popular ballads, she is more a comedienne who can also sing like Fanny Brice some four decades ago, but where Brice could certainly make audience laugh she never had such crystal clear voice this newcomer shows on serene moments (A Taste Of Honey, A Sleepin' Bee). This girl has also a nervous energy that makes some of the well-known songs almost a three act opera, as when she explodes in suicidal vein-bursting versions of "Cry Me A River" or "Happy Days Are Here Again" that were probably attention-grabbing at the time but now we see it as what it is, a showing-off. She is so original and intense in her act (in fact, this is studio version of earlier "live recording" in San Francisco) that it's almost a tragedy she would tone it down in subsequent decades and will become mainstream ballad singer - perhaps it was inevitable, maybe one can't sustain this madcap energy level forever - in order to be accepted she would later basically work on ballads and completely leave comical approach behind. But we remember and this is document what an exciting artist she once was.
Her name was Barbra Streisand.
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