As so often happens, our thoughts turn once again to the liner notes on Barbra Streisand’s What About Today album:
“This album is dedicated to the young people,” wrote the singer with all the grave authority that came with being 27-years-old — in other words, a kid herself. Up until then, Barbra had been knocking them dead with old-style nightclub standards and off-beat showtunes. She had concocted a show business personality that was part clutsy Jerry Lewis, part Queen of England. Now she was declaring herself at one with her generation.
And so she was sending out this selection of recently-penned songs to “the young people, who push against indifference, shout down mediocrity …” — she was definitely in high QE II mode — “… demand a better future, and who write and sing the songs … of today!”
And what better way to salute the Haight-Ashbury Generation than with a straight-faced rendition of the theme from the Poseidon Adventure or the mystical insights of Punkey’s Dilemma, a Paul Simon meditation that begins with the line “Wish I were a Kellogg’s cornflake…”
Oh rebel days! Activist days! Yes, the funeral of Judy Garland did trigger the Stonewall Riots in ‘69. But the release of What About Today that same year gave us a new Gay Pride muse. One who was much easier (not to mention, saner) to identify with. Our Barbara could be both prissy and kooky (like us!), could claim, in a madly snooty, self-involved way, that she was not, in fact, a singer but — as if viewing a psychological snapshot of so many of our souls — “an actress who sings.” Tra -la! Drama queen, anybody?
How well I — a Stonewall Survivor as they call us — remember all those living-in-drag Joey-Heatherton wannabes as they shouted down mediocrity and threw pennies (poor things) at the cops who were shooing the crowd out into the street on the night of the Stonewall riot. The cops thought they were just going through a routine shake-down of a mob-run bar that had been late on its kick-backs. Customers were rarely arrested during these mock raids, though the occasional barback might be pinched to teach management a usually not very expensive lesson.
For the What About Today cover, Barbra had conspired with fashion photographer Richard Avedon (who took the photos here) on a new hairstyle, what Vogue described as “a nimbus of champagne-colored curls, corkscrewing in a froth … derived particularly from photographs of Sarah Bernhardt and Colette” Many of the attacking draq queens that night wore the very same style — derived from Mr. Ray’s Wig World.
The police, surprised at the way the usually docile crowd had turned on them, were unprepared to make mass arrests and by the time backup arrived, the killer drag-queens in Barbra-Colette wigs were all but gone, as everywhere fizzy, curlicue wiglets disappeared into the summer night… like … well, like so many Kellogg’s cornflakes.
Barbra, we are happy to report, is still very much a What About Today kind of gal. On her website, she regularly enlighten us with her many thoughts on the Bush administration. Bravo Babs!
And now for your Gay Pride enjoyment, a little memento de Barbra from the Stonewall Years. At the time Barbra was performing at a small cellar nightclub in the Village called the Bon Soir, a few blocks from the Stonewall. Before fame, before the vocal coaches taught her how to cut down and conserve her voice, she would just walk out there on the postage-stamp size stage and let it rip with a belter’s full-throated abandon. It was a brief but full-blooming moment in the history of the Barbra voice.
This clip from the Gary Moore Show captures the way she was: raw, unusual , and very much a gay specialty taste of the Stonewall era.
God, she was exhilarating. (And don’t miss this.)
God, she’s what……………?
words fail me !!
I think you nailed it with the word “exhilarating” John. What a treat to see that clip. I’m still sometimes shocked when I hear Barbra’s earlier recordings. It’s just the most amazing voice and every one of her performances is riveting.
Don’t listen to her much these days but wow, the early stuff just blows me away.
I remember watching the Sullivan show to see the wonderful Georgia Brown who had the misfortune of appearing the same night Streisand came on the scene with a truly showstopping “Happy Days Are Here Again.” Who could forget it?
jeez….before my time !, how old are you LAO ? , never seen the Sullivan show, never broadcasted in Europe either.
Before my time too, WAY before my time; but then much good music has been made ahead of my time. Dunno if it ever was broadcasted in Europe, prolly before our time, and perhaps anywhere but in the Netherlands.
Well, REALLY! Venerable elders get no respect these days.
OK kids…enough girl fighting. Anyway, it’s interesting to me that some singers, after vocal coaching, rises to fame, marrying badly become much more limited and stylized - Streisand, Houston, that group. Others - Ronstadt comes to mind - actually expand their capabilities and are much more able to communicate the message. It’s not just about making nice noises - there’s actually something in the song they’re trying to communicate.
I was a young guy of 17 at the time just getting into music and hearing about this strange new singer Barbra Streisand. Like the others I loved her early albums - and get this -when I was 20 I saw Funny Girl on the stage here in London, in the front row! How lucky can you get ?
But like so many others I hardly listen to her now and have no interest in her latest comeback tour…. but I do want that dvd set of Judy Garlands TV shows with the show with Judy and Barbara, not to mention the Merman.
I always loved that album. Discovered it while I was in high school in the mid-late 70s. My high school chums all thought me to be the biggest freak for it, but I didn’t care one whit. Barbra sent me. I love love love all her old stuff, and some of the new. Thanks guys for, once again, keeping our gay history alive. xoxoxo
Being an older guy, I remember Barbra singing for her supper at the gay “Lion Bar” in the village in the early ’60’s! A bit of an eccentric with her thrift shop attire but boy did we gays recogonize & catapult certain talents to stardom because we saw it first! I have all her old 33-1/3’s which are far superior to CD’s! She’s a WOW & thank God, she kept her nose, classic!
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