Streisand: Her Life (115 page)

Higher Ground
proved to be a fan favorite, and received generally positive reviews.
Stephen Thomas Erlewine
wrote, “As Barbra Streisand’s first studio album of mainstream pop material in nine years,
Higher Ground
is something of an oddity. Instead of devoting herself to Broadway standards or a set of radio-oriented pop tunes, Streisand has crafted a record that she intended as a tribute to the power of music as prayer. It’s an ambitious project, but for the most part it works, achieving a surprising grace.
Higher Ground
comprises both traditional religious songs and new material (even “Tell Him,” an overblown duet with Celine Dion, vaguely touches on that theme), with grandiose arrangements by Marvin Hamlisch. Although Streisand and Hamlisch still favor sweeping strings and bold statements—so much so that many of the songs sound remarkably similar to each other, in terms of dynamics and arrangements—the album retains its power thanks to her subtle interpretations of melody and lyrics. The end result might not quite match her latter-day masterpieces, but it’s another strong addition to her catalog.

The album debuted at Number One on Billboard’s Top 200 chart, propelling Barbra past the Beatles as the only singer or group to have a number one album in four separate decades. Perhaps because its theme made it a perfect Christmas gift, the album’s sales figures grew week after week. The first week its sales were 207,000, in its sixth week, 465,000. The disc spent 27 weeks on the charts, and was certified Triple Platinum. Worldwide sales were 11 million copies.

It would be two years until Barbra’s next studio album, but she wasn’t lollygagging: she spent the time preparing for and planning her wedding, and living a life as a newlywed that she, James Brolin, and their friends describe as blissful.

U
nsurprisingly, Barbra planned her wedding with all the meticulous attention to detail that she uses when directing a film. She kept a notebook of ideas, suggestions, and photographs for a year before the event, which was planned for July 1998. But most of the final decisions, Barbra said, were made in the two to three weeks before the wedding. There was never any question of where the wedding and reception would be held—Barbra had turned her home into a showplace with lovely flowered grounds and views of the Pacific Ocean. She decided to erect a twenty-eight-hundred-square-foot tent on the property, swagged with white satin and rose garlands, under which her guests would eat dinner and cake and dance.

Barbra’s Malibu assistant Kim Skalecki managed to invite all one hundred and five guests without news of the wedding leaking out, but little beyond that went smoothly. Workers putting up the tent trampled some of Barbra’s lovingly planned and tended to flower patches, so her gardeners needed to do last minute replantings. Barbra was
verklempt
the morning of the wedding when she found that the flower arrangements weren’t right, she didn’t have a track to sing along with for a planned serenade to her new husband, and her dress wasn’t finished. But she decided there was no more she could do, that “at your own wedding you can’t make a mistake.” So she took a shower, ramped up the steam, and “all my tensions dissolved…it was as if they flowed down the drain…it was amazing. I decided let go and let God.”

God must have been in a good mood that day, because everything came together at the last minute. The music arrived, the flowers looked beautiful, and Donna Karan finished the a dress just minutes before the ceremony.

At 8 p.m., escorted by Jason and preceded by her mother, sister, and soon-to-be stepson Josh Brolin, Barbra made her entrance. She looked gorgeous in a white tulle gown with white-flowered headband and flowing tulle train, and was accompanied by an atonal version of the wedding march played by Marvin Hamlisch. “I realized later that I looked familiar to myself—like my character in
Funny Girl.
” (Indeed, Barbra looked much like she did in the “His Love Makes Me Beautiful” number.)

After a fifteen-minute ceremony, the guests repaired to the tent and feasted on soft shell crabs, rotisserie-roasted baby chickens, and porcini ravioli. There were half a dozen toasts. Barbra’s longtime personal assistant Renata Buser emotionally told James, “You have a rarest flower.” Josh Brolin read an original poem: “My father and his bride, look at how they watch each other….” Then Barbra sang two new songs to her husband, “Just One Lifetime,” and “I’ve Dreamed of You.” The latter tune she and James had first heard in a restaurant during a trip to Ireland in late 1997. “I heard this instrumental playing,” Barbra recalled, “and I loved it, so I asked Anne Hampton Calloway to write lyrics to it.” (The music had been written by the Norwegian composer Rolf Lovland of the New Age group Secret Garden.)

Callaway recalled, “When I faxed the lyric to Barbra’s producer, he was very happy with it, and, after a few minor changes, sent it to Barbra. On a Monday I learned that Barbra loved the song and that she wanted me to record a demo and send it immediately. Tuesday, I recorded the demo and overnighted it to Barbra’s assistant. Apparently, three hours before the wedding, she heard the demo and decided to sing the song along with a song she has already planned to perform by Melissa Manchester and Tom Snow. It was my playing and Irwin Fisch’s string arrangement that accompanied Barbra as she sang ‘I’ve Dreamed of You’ to James Brolin. It’s a revelation to me how in love Barbra must be to have the courage to be so spontaneous on such a momentous occasion. A friend of mine who spoke to Marvin Hamlisch was told it was an absolutely stunning moment.”

Standing up after Barbra completed the song, the groom said with a laugh, “You expect me to follow that? I can’t tell you how lucky I am that this should happen to me so late in life. Every night is a new adventure. Sleeping is a waste of time. I can’t wait to see her again in the morning.” The party lasted until one in the morning, and then Mr. and Mrs. James Brolin left for a short honeymoon on the Channel Islands, off the coast of Santa Barbara. Just a week later Jim was due to start shooting new episodes of his television series.

Four months after her wedding, during an online chat at AOL, Barbra told fans “I’m starting an album this month called
Barbra...In Love.
” It was to contain a number of love songs, old and new, inspired by her new relationship. Nearly a year later, on September 21, 1999, the album was released, retitled
A Love Like Ours
. As she had with her boyfriend Jon Peters when she made
ButterFly
, Barbra peppered the album packaging with images of James Brolin and herself, including on the front and back covers. The front cover featured a shot (reminiscent of her
People
cover), of the two lovebirds from behind, staring out at the ocean.

The twelve tracks included the two songs Barbra sang to Jim at their wedding, “I’ve Dreamed of You” and “Just One Lifetime”; the Gershwins’ “Isn’t It a Pity?,” which the couple considered “our song”; Dave Grusin and the Bergmans’ “Love Like Ours” ; “If I Never Met You;” a duet with Vince Gill, “If You Ever Leave Me”; and a lovely new version of “His Is The Only Music That Makes Me Dance” from the stage version of
Funny Girl
. This last choice pleased many of Barbra’s fans who loved the song on the original cast album and were sorry it wasn’t included in the film version.

Arif Mardin, the album’s producer, recalled that “We worked very fast, contrary to what people keep asking me. Barbra is such a fabulous talent. We were at Sony Studios with a 60-piece orchestra. She sings live, of course. She belongs to the tradition where, for example, if she feels emotional and wants to slow down a beat, the conductor will watch for her cues and slow down the orchestra. It’s all organic.”

Barbra and Vince Gill, a Grammy-winning country music star, worked on “If I Never Met You”with David Foster at his Malibu studio on Monday, February 22 from 11 a.m. until 2 the next morning. Gill told
Country Weekly
magazine that he was “knocked out” by the chance to work with Barbra: “Where that phone call came from, I have no idea. I don’t know if Barbra’s ever heard my records, or if David Foster and Richard Marx told her about me or her husband James, I have no clue... But to be in the studio singing with her was incredible. To be in her presence and hear her voice in real time right there in the room is unbelievable.”

Many reviews of
A Love Like Ours
complained about its “gushiness” and “sentimentality.” Those who are moved enjoyably by romanticism liked it better. Critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote, “[The] album is a little subdued, which is appropriate for a romantic album. And, judged as a romance album, it works pretty well. Essentially,
A Love Like Ours
is a simple love album, a soundtrack to
Streisand
and Brolin’s wedding that will work for other weddings. It’s mood music that doesn’t set the mood, but will compliment the mood quite nicely.”

Barbra was unabashed by the sentimentality complaints. In her liner notes she wrote, “I’ve usually thought of love as a private matter, something experienced in that narrow space between two hearts. Yet once you find love, whenever it arrives, you somehow want to share that joy. You hope everyone in the world can feel the way you do at some point in their lives. Happiness makes you want to sing. You know all those corny things they say in every love song you’ve ever heard? Well, they’re true! Love is what life is all about. Love
is
the answer. I hope this album inspires your own loving spirit ... and may you be blessed with something as special as a love like ours.”

Barbra publicized the album by participating in various interview segments for television, including
Rosie
and the
Today Show
. She also did a round of interviews with various media outlets from a rented home near her own in Malibu. Columbia set up the lights and cameras and filmed a string of reporters interviewing her. The journalists were then sent the tapes. Despite this barrage of publicity, however,
A Love Like Ours
didn’t match the success of its predecessor. It debuted (and peaked) at Number Six on the
Billboard
chart, selling 145,000 copies its first week of release. It was, however, a solid success, certified Platinum a month after its release. It was Barbra’s twenty-third Top Ten Album.

I
n the spring of 1999, the MGM Grand announced that Barbra would return for another New Year’s Eve concert on December 31, her first big-venue performance since the end of her 1994 tour. (She had sung at a fundraiser for President Clinton’s re-election in 1996.) Ticket prices ranged from $500 to $2500, and were sold out almost immediately. A second show was added for the following night.

Don Mischer, the producer of the concert, spoke to Streisand author Allison Waldman about the preparations for the show. “There’s a process you go through in which everything is examined and it’s re-examined and all avenues are explored constantly, so the process is extremely focused and very consuming, but always with Barbra, you end up at the right place, with the right material. I remember being at her house many times with long, long meetings. And if there was some reason that we’d want to hear music, she would get up, go over to the piano and Marvin Hamlisch would be there, he was our musical director, and she’d sing “Some Enchanted Evening” and you just got goose bumps. I mean, I’m here in a room with Barbra and Marvin Hamlisch and she’s just singing “Some Enchanted Evening” for the three or four of us there. What an honor! I just have the greatest respect for her.”

The same level of excitement gripped Barbra fans over these concerts as had the ones in 1994. Once again they came from all over the world, many who had been there for the 1994 concerts, and those who were seeing Barbra live for the first time. She didn’t disappoint anyone.

Gone was the elegant set from the previous concerts, replaced by a rather industrial-looking pyramid set. The first person on stage was Savion Glover, wearing a heavy black ankle-length coat, playing “Brother Time” and tap dancing while Marvin Hamlisch conducted the overture. Then a little girl who looked a lot like Barbra came out, along with her mother. It was fourteen-year-old Barbara and Mrs. Kind, played by Lauren Frost and Randee Heller, arriving to make Barbra’s acetate recording of “You’ll Never Know.” The pianist, frustrated by Barbra’s improvisations, tells her “I’ve played the Catskills!” and adds that she’ll never amount to anything.

Barbra then burst out from behind Savion’s coat to sing a rousing “Something’s Coming.” After the song ended Barbra said hello to the crowd and said she felt that the eve of a new millennium should be a time of reflection before singing “The Way We Were.”

After a not-as-amusing-as-they-might-have-hoped onscreen interview with Shirley MacLaine about her experiences at the beginning of the last millennium, Barbra brought the audience back to her days at the Bon Soir and sang an emotional “Cry Me a River.” Then it was “Lover Come Back to Me, which Barbra said she had sung at the Basin Street East with Count Basie accompanying her. (She was his opening act.)

Next came “A Sleeping Bee,” sung beautifully after a rarely-heard introductory verse. Savion Glover then brought her a secretary’s chair, which she used to sing “Miss Marmelstein” just as she had done it in “I Can Get It for You Wholesale” in 1962. (Well, not exactly. For some reason she changed the words “fussed” and “bust” to “knots” and “plotz.”

Now is was time for “Funny Girl,” and Barbra sang a medley of “I’m the Greatest Star,” “Second Hand Rose,” and “Don’t Rain On My Parade” to Florenz Ziegfeld, who was “up above—like God.” Staying on Broadway, Barbra sang “Something Wonderful” (she occasionally looked down at James Brolin in the front row) and a forceful “Being Alive.”

Then it was on to movie songs: “As Time Goes By” and “Alfie.” Barbra told the story about hearing the song on the radio a few years back while riding in a taxi and thinking she should record it. She called the radio station to see who had been singing it and was told it was Barbra Streisand. She had completely forgotten recording the tune, which was on her 1969 album
What About Today
.

“Evergreen,” which had originally had meaning for her because of Jon Peters, now caused her to wriggle her pinkie and smile at James while she sang it.

Barbra then told of receiving a letter that her father had written to a girlfriend when he was nineteen, before he met her mother, and how meaningful and even “mystical” it had been for her to read it. Lauren Frost reappeared and she and Barbra reprised “You’ll Never Know, then segued into “Papa Can You Hear Me,” and concluded with “A Piece of Sky,” with an additional voice added—Barbra’s as Yentl. A huge screen behind them showed all three singers and made for a rousing finale to Act One.

Act Two opened with a film montage of Barbra’s movie roles that ends with a series of photographs of her (from early childhood to present day) morphing into each other. Barbra came on stage in a stunning burgundy taffeta gown (complete with hoop to keep the skirt full) under a floor-length green cape in matching material with burgundy liner. (Barbra designed the dress herself.)

Barbra then sang “On A Clear Day,” did a bit with the Nola Recording Studios pianist (who is now a waiter), and gave a moving rendition of “Send in the Clowns.” A Duets segment followed, with film of Barbra singing with Judy Garland, Barry Gibb, Bryan Adams, Celine Dion, and Neil Diamond. (“My friend Neil. We went to the same high school!”)

Her favorite duet partner, Barbra added, was her son Jason. She then showed a home movie of a five-year-old Jason singing “Sing, sing a song” along with her, holding a whisk as a microphone. (The film takes on a little more meaning in 2012, with Jason having launched a recording career and singing a duet with Barbra on stage in front of thousands.)

More film of Jason growing up followed, as his mother sang “I’ve Got a Crush on You.” The song then turned into a duet with Fran Sinatra, who appeared on screen in an old clip while Barbra sang live alongside it.

Barbra then did a funny bit about today’s often confusing technology, especially remote controls, during which her “mother” reappeared and started to nag her about eating right. “Where’s the mute?” Barbra asked plaintively.

She then did an energetic version of “Main Event/Fight,” with three backup singers. The audience started waving light wands as though at a rock concert. Afterwards, to give Barbra a chance to change from what must have been a cumbersome outfit, Savion Glover, minus the great coat, did some more tap dancing to “Time After Time.” Barbra then reappeared in a lovely new ensemble—a white gown that resembled her wedding dress, covered with a sequined tulle mantle that a few minutes later she revealed to have been her wedding veil in its previous incarnation.

She spoke a bit more about her father’s letter, then sang “I Dreamed of You.” A photo of James Brolin then appeared on the huge screen behind her. “Hello Gorgeous!” Barbra exclaimed. She then sang “At the Same Time” as dozen of people, young and old, gathered to sing above and behind her.

It was close to midnight. Barbra sang “Old Lang Syne” followed by “People.” At one minute to midnight, Barbra brought her husband up on stage. As the countdown began, and Savion Glover tapped, Jason and other friends and family joined them. At midnight, Barbra kissed James several times, then kissed and hugged Jason and a few others on the stage. A blizzard of confetti poured from the Grand’s rafters, and fireworks went off above the stage. James and Barbra then danced, and Barbra hugged Lauren Frost, calling her “Mini Me!”

Barbra closed the triumphant show with “Happy Days Are Here Again,” “Don’t Like Goodbyes,” and an “I Believe/Somewhere” medley sung with Lauren Frost.

Fans left the MGM Grand Arena knowing they had seen a fantastic show and Barbra Streisand at the absolute top of her game.

Three weeks before the millennium shows, Barbra announced that she would embark on her first foreign concert tour in Australia the following March, to “fulfill a lifelong dream of performing for her Australian fans.” Barbra later admitted that another strong reason was that she and her husband had always wanted to visit the country.

Barbra’s entourage Down Under, according to
Billboard
, comprised “a team of 333 people including production staff; a 78-piece orchestra conducted by Marvin Hamlisch; and locally hired choirs of 87 people each in Sydney and Melbourne.” Barbra also brought along some of the hardware from the Vegas shows: the LED screen, TelePrompTers, the pyramid set, and “a 250,000-watt sound system.” The costs of mounting the concerts fell in the range of nine to thirteen million U.S. dollars. The profits fro ticket sales would went 90% to Streisand and 10% to promoters Jacobsen Entertainment.

The original cast members accompanied Barbra on the tour, with the exception of Savion Glover, whose “Brother Time” character was no longer needed.

Barbra’s Australian shows were a triumph, and although she had said her Vegas concerts would be her last in the United States, she decided to reprise the show in Los Angeles and New York in September. The tour grossed a record-breaking $70 million and drew audiences of 200,000 for only ten dates.

On September 19 (before her last four concerts in Los Angeles and New York), Columbia released a live 2-CD recording, using the best from both of the Vegas concerts.
Timeless
debuted at No. 21 on the Billboard chart, where it remained for fifteen weeks, and was certified Platinum. On February 14, 2001, the Fox channel ran an edited version of the MGM Grand concerts, removing all references to New Year’s Eve and the numbers “Miss Marmelstein” and “A Sleeping Bee,” among others. Fans who had seen the show were greatly disappointed by the truncating, and annoyed by the frequent commercial interruptions.

Happily, a week later Sony released VHS and DVD versions of the complete concert. This was Barbra’s first release in the new digital videodisc format. Matt Howe, whose “Barbra Archives.com” is arguably the best Streisand fan site, reviewed the DVD on Amazon: “Compared to 1994-95’s ‘Barbra: The Concert,’ you will find ‘Timeless’ to be full of more lights, costume changes and theatricality (it opens with a cast of three, and includes Lauren Frost portraying a 14-year-old Barbra). ‘Timeless’ is what I would call the
Ultimate Streisand Concert
. You get a fleeting idea of what it would be like to see Streisand on stage at the Winter Garden Theatre in ‘Funny Girl’ back in the 60s. Barbra gives a very athletic performance in ‘Timeless.’ She dances, crosses the stage, and flaps those wonderful long arms up and down like a bird (ahhh, vintage Streisand moves!) The 1994 “Concert” is serene, yet simpler in comparison... As for the voice, I have realized that sixty to seventy percent of experiencing Barbra as a performer is watching her. The voice, although older and richer, is still amazing. The actress and performer is still exciting and idiosyncratic.”