Barbra Streisand - Live at the Bon Soir [2LP]

Barbra Streisand was just 20 when Columbia rolled tape at the Bon Soir, a tiny Greenwich Village club she owned night after night. Live at the Bon Soir arrives here as a 180-gram 2LP set.

The label recorded these shows in 1962 with a debut live album in mind, then shelved the idea and sent her into the studio instead. The tapes sat in the vault for six decades before finally surfacing in 2022, and they reveal an artist who already knew exactly who she was.

The repertoire mixes torch songs, show tunes and comic numbers, delivered with a small combo that follows her every swerve. "Cry Me a River" smolders with a control that belies her age, "A Sleepin' Bee" floats on delicate phrasing, and "Happy Days Are Here Again" is slowed into the aching ballad that became one of her signatures. Then "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" shows off the wit and timing that kept audiences laughing between the heartbreaks.

Hearing the crowd react in real time adds a thrilling sense of place, as if you have squeezed into one of those cramped tables yourself. For fans who know the polished studio records, this is the raw spark that lit everything that followed, finally preserved exactly as it happened.