People [Remaster]

Performer: Barbra Streisand
Producer: Robert Mersey
Distributor: Sony Music Distribution (

Notes: Digitally remastered by Stephen Marcussen. After two less successful albums, Barbra Streisand returned to form on her fourth album, People, with a selection of songs that showed some of the imagination of her debut album. Much of the material was new. The album opened and closed with songs by Jule Styne and Bob Merrill, first "Absent Minded Me," and then the Top Ten title song that was the hit from Streisand's triumphant Broadway show, Funny Girl. Streisand introduced Cy Coleman and Carolyn Leigh's "When in Rome (I Do as the Romans Do)," a lively song that allowed her to display some of the spirit and humor that had been missing on her last two outings. And when picking from older songs, she again found obscure or atypical tunes from prominent composers or lost gems she could make her own. In the former category were Irving Berlin's "Supper Time," a blues song unlike any the composer had ever done, and "My Lord and Master," from Rodgers & Hammerstein's The King and I. In the latter was the delightful "Fine and Dandy," from the 1930 show of the same name, with music by Kay Swift. Add in some obvious choices like Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn's "Love Is a Bore" (a companion to the previously recorded "Down with Love") and "Don't Like Goodbyes," another selection from Harold Arlen and Truman Capote's House of Flowers, from which Streisand had earlier picked "A Sleepin' Bee," and you have an album fashioned to play to the singer's strengths and musical tastes instead of trying to fit her into existing ones. That wasn't quite enough to match the quality of her debut album, but it was a definite improvement over the second and third albums. (People won Grammy Awards for Best Vocal Performance and Best Album Cover.) ~ William Ruhlmann When 22 year-old Barbra Streisand released PEOPLE in September 1964, she was at the beginning of what would be a long and fruitful career. The album is vintage Streisand. With the title track (originally from "Funny Girl") eventually becoming a classic song and signature Streisand number, the album is indicative of a young talent finding and defining herself. The standards and showtunes are given that Streisand touch, with her humorous shtick showing on "When In Rome (Do As The Romans Do)." Yet the Broadway-like radiance is interwoven with that VOICE. "How Does The Wine Taste?" and "My Lord And Master" mark the emergence of a truly original vocal style. Barbra gets gritty in "Supper Time" and entrancing in "Autumn." PEOPLE is a fabulous record and an excellent representation of Streisand's early work.

Q (5/02, p.136) - 3 out of 5 stars - "...Blessed with a voice that can tenderise like an eight-pound sledgehammer....a good career overview..." Mojo (Publisher) (7/02, p.117) - "...The songs chosen were all quality fare...Peter Matz and Ray Ellis' charts still sound relevant nearly 40 years on..."

When she emerged in a 1960s pop scene dominated by rock & roll, Barbra Streisand was a breath of fresh air to those nostalgic for the great Broadway-oriented pop vocalists of the past. Her stratospheric range and (initially) anachronistic taste in material made her the new Grande Dame of non-rock pop music. Along the way she experimented with the flavors of the day, from folk-rock to disco, but she always returned to the Great American Songbook for inspiration.

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