Barbra Streisand Release Me 180g LP (New And Sealed) (USA Pressing)

Previously Unreleased Material From The Vaults - on 180g Vinyl!

Barbra Streisand’s private music vault holds all the master tapes she’s recorded for five decades. Now, she’s sharing 11 previously unreleased songs, spanning a cross-section of her career from 1963 to the present.

For the first time Barbra Streisand has curated a release of her previously unreleased material. In an unparalleled career, Barbra has accumulated over 100 previously unreleased recordings. She has painstakingly gone through the recordings to come up with this collection - “Release Me.”

Highlights include a striking version of “I Think It’s Gonna Rain Today” with Barbra on vocals and Randy Newman on Keyboards from 1971 and “With One More Look,” an unreleased track from A Star Is Born. This is Barbra's first ever compilation of unreleased material in a career that has spanned 50 years.

With the exception of two songs where the original masters couldn't be located, all the tracks on Release Me were transferred from first generation master tapes. Every attention was paid to preserving the sonic perspective of the sessions as they were originally recorded and mixed.

An eight-time Grammy Award winner who is the only performer to have number one albums in five consecutive decades, her 51 gold albums, 30 platinum and 18 multi-platinum, each of which, according to the Recording Industry Association of America, exceeds all other female singers. Only Elvis Presley has achieved more Gold albums than she. The RIAA also notes that her 71 million albums sales tops the RIAA list of album sales by a female singer. With the recent debut at #1 of her “Love Is The Answer” album, her 9th record to reach that top spot, the time-span between her first and most recent Number One albums, exceeding that of any other performer or act, is now 46 years. Her most recent album, “What Matters Most,” debuting at Number 4, was her 31st to reach the Top Ten in the ratings charts, with which she passed The Beatles to become the third highest achiever in that significant statistic, exceeded only by the Rolling Stones and Frank Sinatra.

"When I first began recording in the early 1960’s, we made entire albums in three days... we would try to do four songs in a three-hour session. Usually the last song got short-changed! Back then, we only had 4-tracks to record on... and that was for the orchestra and the vocal, so we didn’t have space to fix things. If I didn’t like a few notes or the arrangement wasn’t exactly right, I wouldn’t release the song. After all, records are forever! Many of the songs on this album only had one or two takes to choose from. That’s because we simply ran out of time, or possibly some musicians had another session to go to, or maybe another artist had booked the studio we were working in. Once I finish making an album, I rarely listen to it. So it was quite interesting to go through the vaults, find these recordings and hear them again with the benefit of hindsight. You could say I’m more forgiving of myself now. In fact, I’m pleasantly surprised by how much I actually like the overall recordings, even with their flaws. Although I could have re-sung certain lines where I thought they could be improved, I decided to leave every vocal the way it was. The thing I’m happiest about is that I have a great affection for all these songs. They appealed to me at the time... and still do. For better or worse, I’m much less of a perfectionist these days. Listening now, I actually think to myself, “The girl wasn’t half bad.” - Barbra Streisand

The Vault:
"Before entering, take a moment to imagine the sum total of your life’s work in one climate-controlled room. As you’re about to see, when it comes to Barbra Streisand’s legendary fifty-years of recorded music, this is exactly what you’ll find inside the vault.

"After you sign-in and security opens the reinforced locked door, the first thing you’ll notice are the floor-to-ceiling shelves with tape boxes from every era of her recording career – People, Color Me Barbra, A Star Is Born, The Bon Soir, Daniel Ellsberg Fundraiser, Judy Garland Show, The Hungry-I, McGovern Concert, Guilty, Yentl... on and on... titles both iconic and unfamiliar... public and private... released and unreleased.

"From the early ’60s you’ll see stacks of acetates (hard lacquer discs used to evaluate music before they’re pressed onto commercial LPs) and endless rows of half-inch 2-track and quarter-inch 4-track tapes spooled onto heavy metal reels... Je m’appelle Barbra, Simply Streisand, A Christmas Album, Funny Girl, Dolly, Philly ’66, Central Park ’67...

"As the years progress, there are 8-track tapes, 12-track, 16-track, 24-track – all contained in thick cardboard boxes with the recording engineer’s handwritten scrawl indicating their contents. The manufacturer logos - Ampex, RCA, 3M, Sony, AGFA, JVC, Scotch, Maxell, Panasonic – a parade of brands in quest of perfect sound... Classical Barbra, Lazy Afternoon, Superman, The Broadway Album, One Voice, Barbra w/Sinatra, Barbra w/Neil Daimond, Barbra w/Celine Dion, Barbra w/Josh Groban, Barbra w/Ray Charles, Barbra w/Donna Summer...

"There are safety reels (copies of original master tapes) and slave reels (sub-mixes created before the final mixes). Inside every box (hopefully) are ledgers indicating on which track(s) each section of the orchestra and Barbra’s vocals reside. On the floor you’ll notice large storage containers of cassettes, DATs (digital audio tape), micro-cassettes, VHS and Betamax tapes. Then there are more rows of shelves holding the digital era 48-track tapes and carrying cases with Pro-Tools files, which hold an infinite number of tracks... Back To Broadway, The Prince of Tides, The Movie Album, The Mirror Has Two Faces, Higher Ground, Clinton Benefit, A Love Like Ours, Madison Square Garden 2000, Love Is The Answer, Obama Benefit, What Matters Most, Women’s Heart Fund 2012...

"Even under ideal conditions, some of these tapes begun to oxidize. In order to play them back without damage, they have to be 'baked' and then transferred into a digital format for preservation.

"Once your mind takes in the sheer volume of the vault’s contents, another thought emerges... namely, how incredible it is that all these tapes and boxes reflect the evolution of a single artist. It is nothing less than the repository of a series of dreams that grow from youthful exuberance to adult resolve... and the thousands of hours of work it took to get there.

"All of Barbra’s glorious music... her ideas... the collaborative efforts of the fortunate songwriters, arrangers, mixers and producers who came into her orbit... the experiments... the occasional missteps and the many triumphs - all driven by the unstoppable force of one woman’s vision.

"Finally, it should be noted that there are still several empty shelves waiting to be filled with her future dreams. - Please come inside." - Jay Landers, Hollywood, CA, 2012

Features:
• 180g Vinyl
• All except two songs were transferred from first generation master tapes

*** LP Pressed in USA



Selections:
Side A:
1. Being Good Isn't Good Enough (from Hallelujah, Baby!)
2. Didn't We
3. Willow Weep For Me
4. Try To Win A Friend
5. I Think It’s Gonna Rain Today
6. With One More Look At You (from A Star Is Born)
Side B:
7. Lost In Wonderland
8. How Are Things In Glocca Morra?/ Heather On the Hill (from Finian’s Rainbow/Brigadoon)
9. Mother And Child
10. If It’s Meant To Be
11. Home (from The Wiz)


Price : SOLD
Condition : New and Sealed
Label : Sony Music
Contact / SMS : 0195941098