Columbia label president Goddard Lieberson initially resisted signing Streisand to a contract, finding her style too close to the cabaret singers he disliked and too far from the understated approach of Jo Stafford or Rosemary Clooney, who recorded for the label in the 1950s. After exposure to Streisand's television interview with Mike Wallace on PM East/PM West and pressure from associates, Lieberson relented and agreed to sign her. Nearly three decades later Streisand would reflect:
The most important thing about that first contract – actually, the thing we held out for – was a unique clause giving me the right to choose my own material. It was the only thing I really cared about. I still received lots of pressure from the label to include some pop hits on my first album, but I held out for the songs that really meant something to me.
Despite Lieberson's initial objections, Streisand went on to become one of Columbia's most enduring artists. Streisand's first album was originally conceived as a live recording, since she had made a name for herself performing at the Bon Soir in New York City. Her producerMike Berniker brought a crew to the club to record Streisand accompanied only by the Bon Soir house pianist, Peter Daniels. These recordings were scrapped, although the cover shot for the album was taken during the Bon Soir session. Some material from the Bon Soir sets would later appear on Streisand's Just for the Record... retrospective box set. Streisand chose the album title, rejecting Columbia's suggestion of Sweet and Saucy Streisand.
Recording
Recording studio sessions took place January 23–25, 1963, at Columbia's Studio A in New York City with a budget of $18,000. Material was mostly chosen from Broadway standards, many of which were fairly obscure. "I'll Tell the Man in the Street" was originally performed by Dennis King in the 1938 production of I Married An Angel, and "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" was taken from the 1933 Disney cartoon Three Little Pigs. Not one of his well-known numbers, "Come to the Supermarket " appeared in a 1958 television special with music by Cole Porter, while "A Sleepin' Bee" came from the 1954 musical House of Flowers. "Soon It's Gonna Rain" and "Much More" were both introduced in the 1960 off-Broadway musical The Fantasticks, and the 1930 filmChasing Rainbows provided "Happy Days Are Here Again". "Cry Me A River" was a signature song of Julie London, while "A Taste of Honey" was coincidentally recorded less than three weeks later by the Beatles for their 1963 debut album, Please Please Me. "Happy Days Are Here Again" was released as Columbia single 42631 with "When the Sun Comes Out" on the b-side, but it did not chart. Notwithstanding, at the 1964 Grammy Awards, The Barbra Streisand Album won awards in the categories of Album of the Year, Best Female Vocal Performance, and Best Album Cover - Other Than Classical, the latter presented to art directorJohn Berg. The only song recorded but not included on this album was "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered which Streisand and Mike Berniker recorded on two separate dates. The song was included instead on Streisand's The Third Album using a Peter Daniels arrangement. Streisand chose Century Italic typeface for the album sleeve of her debut album, which would also be used on 19 other Streisand album covers. The album made its digital debut on CD in 1987 and was re-released in a remastered CD edition on October 19, 1993.
Critical reception
gave the album a retrospective five stars, and called it "an essential recording in the field of pop vocals because it redefines that genre in contemporary terms," and "the first thing that strikes you listening to it, is that great voice. And it isn't just the sheer quality of the voice, its purity and its strength throughout its register, it's also the mastery of vocal effects that produce dramatic readings of the lyrics -- each song is like a one-act musical."
