Happy Days Are Here Again in Movie

"Happy Days Are Here Again"

Composed by Milton Ager (music) and Jack Yellin (lyric); arranged past George "The Fox" Williams.

Recorded by Barbra Streisand for Columbia Records in October of 1962 in New York.

The story: Barbra Streisand was born in Brooklyn, New York on April 24, 1942. Brooklyn remained a role of her personality long afterward she left it, commencement to enter show business in Manhattan, and then to get onto an enormously successful career equally a singer, actress and flick-maker. Growing upwards in Brooklyn, she learned the quick reactions one has to take to be successful onstage. Despite the fact that she possesses a voice that comes along very rarely, and amazing musical instincts that she seems to have had since she was a child, her career as a performer became more successful only after she was able to talk with and joke with the audiences she blew away with her singing. It humanized her, and enabled audiences to know that at the cadre of her being, she was just a girl from Brooklyn. "Brooklyn to me means the Loew's Kings, Erasmus (Hall High School), the yeshiva I went to, the Dodgers, Prospect Park, neat Chinese food. I'yard so glad I came from Brooklyn — it'southward down to globe." (At right: Barbara, equally she was and then known, with (I think) her older brother Sheldon – 1952 in Brooklyn.)

Barbara attended Erasmus Hall High School from 1956 to January 1959, when she graduated at age 16. She excelled at her studies as well as singing while in high school. One of her classmates and friends at Erasmus was Neil Diamond. (Beneath – Barbara's picture in her high school twelvemonth book – 1956.)

She moved to Manhattan soon later on leaving high school, and scuffled, trying to pause into evidence business. The year 1959 was 1 during which Barbara worked at menial jobs, slept on the couches of friends, and made the rounds of casting offices. Her chief objective was to get an player, not a singer. She took a job equally an usher at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater for The Sound of Music early in 1960. During the run of the play, she heard that the casting director was auditioning for more singers, and information technology marked the outset time she sang in pursuit of a job. Although the managing director felt she was non right for the role, he encouraged her to begin including her talent as a singer on her résumé when looking for work.

She asked her then boyfriend, Barry Dennen, to record her singing. Dennen plant a guitarist to accompany her: "We spent the afternoon taping, and the moment I heard the beginning playback I went insane … This nutty niggling kook had i of the near breathtaking voices I'd ever heard … when she was finished and I turned off the machine, I needed a long moment before I dared look up at her." (i)

She and so duplicated the tapes so she could give copies of them give to possible employers equally demos. Dennen grew enthusiastic, and in the spring of 1960 he convinced her to enter a talent competition at the Lion, a gay bar in Greenwich Village. At that place, she performed two songs in the competition, later which there was a "stunned silence" from the audience, followed by "thunderous applause" when she was pronounced the winner. She was invited dorsum and sang at the club for several weeks without pay, but with audiences. Information technology was during this time that she dropped the second "a" from her first name, switching from "Barbara" to "Barbra."

In the summer of 1960, Streisand auditioned at the Bon Soir, a nightclub on 8th Street in Greenwich Village. She got the gig there, which paid $125 a week. It was her offset professional engagement as a singer. In the club'south show she was the opening human activity for comedienne Phyllis Diller, who was the headliner. She subsequently recalled that was the first time she had been in that kind of "plush" environment: "I'd never been in a nightclub until I sang in one." During her run at that venue, she became something of an clandestine sensation in Greenwich Village.

She discovered that her ironic Brooklyn sense of humor was received favorably past her audiences, then she began inserting light-hearted comments, e'er with a hip Brooklyn edge, between songs. During the adjacent vi months appearing Bon Soir, she began to go noticed by mainstream media. Newspaper reporters and columnists began comparing her singing vocalization to those of Judy Garland, Lena Horne and Fanny Brice. Her ability to charm audiences with spontaneous humor during performances became more than sophisticated and professional person. Theater critic Leonard Harris wrote: "She's twenty; by the time she'due south thirty she will have rewritten the record books." By late in 1960, Barbra Streisand's career was commencement to take-off.

With the aid of her new personal director, Martin Erlichman, she had successful engagements in Detroit and St. Louis. Erlichman then booked her at a more upscale nightclub in Manhattan, the Blue Affections on east 55th Street, where she continued to excite audiences during the menstruum from 1961 to 1962.

In early 1962 she participated in the Columbia Records cast recording of the Harold Rome Broadway show I Can Get It for You Wholesale. This recording was produced by the president of Columbia Records, Goddard Lieberson. Lieberson was a well-schooled musician who had worked his way upward to the presidency of Columbia from the position of A and R human, where he started in 1939. Although his accomplishments at Columbia Records were manifold, his particular favorite activity was in introducing cast recordings of Broadway shows to the popular music market on LP records, which started in the early on 1950s. He loved every aspect of doing this, including acting equally producer at the recording sessions. In order to ensure a constant flow of new material for Columbia Broadway cast recording LPs, Lieberson besides pioneered in having Columbia Records invest in promising Broadway musical shows. (Above correct: Goddard Lieberson and Barbra Streisand at the signing of her offset contract with Columbia Records.)

During 1 of the recording sessions for theI Can Become It for Y'all Wholesale anthology, which took place at Columbia's 30th Street recording studio in Manhattan, with dozens of musicians and singers participating, the shine flow of the session was interrupted when a relatively unknown Barbra Streisand "stopped in the center of her song, 'Miss Marmelstein,' because she didn't like the orchestration. Lieberson, who produced the session, stepped out of the control booth, took her aside, and quietly only firmly got her to sing the song as written."(2) This inauspicious meeting was the commencement between Goddard Lieberson, president of Columbia Records, and Barbra Streisand. But she did meet him, and subsequently that interaction, he definitely knew who she was.

As i would expect, Lieberson, though he couldn't help but to appreciate Barbra's singing, was less enchanted with her beliefs in the recording studio on that date. At age 19, she conspicuously had huge talent as a singer, and the beginnings of an artistic temperament to match. Even so, Lieberson showed no inclination to have any involvement with Barbra Streisand's singing career.

But every bit president of Columbia Records, Lieberson was at the epicenter of the pop music business and so, and increasingly, diverse people were coming to him with the same recommendation: sign Barbra Streisand Now! Eventually, Lieberson agreed to nourish one of Barbra's performances at the Blue Angel. Her singing "…knocked him to the canvas. 'Information technology takes a big man to admit a fault,' Lieberson told Barbra'due south manager Marty Erlichman, 'and I made a mistake. (Now) I would like to record Barbra.'"(three) Barbra Streisand signed with Columbia Records on October i, 1962.

The music:

The song "Happy Days Are Here Over again" was composed in 1929 for the Yard-G-One thousand movie Chasing Rainbows. In May of 1962, Barbra Streisand appeared on The Garry Moore tv set show. During a segment called "That Wonderful Year," in a skit set in the year 1929, Barbra performed "Happy Days Are Here Once more" ironically every bit a millionaire who has only lost all of her money and enters a bar, giving the bartender her expensive jewelry in substitution for drinks. She sang the song, which was unremarkably done at a medium or upwards tempo, at an insinuatingly boring tempo. Her performance built dynamically to an explosive finale, and immediately became an audition-pleaser during the early stage of her career.

Streisand first recorded "Happy Days Are Here Again" in Oct 1962 at Columbia'southward 30th Street NYC studio, some months earlier her start album sessions. This version, bundled and conducted by George "The Fox" Williams(shown below left) (3), became Streisand'southward first commercial single in November 1962, with the Harold Arlen/Ted Kohler standard "When the Sun Comes Out" on the B side. But 500 copies of this single were pressed for the New York marketplace, and no copies were sent to radio stations. However, the record flew off the shelves of the record stores where information technology was available for purchase. This 1962 version was re-released equally a unmarried in March 1965 as part of Columbia'southward "Hall of Fame" serial.

This first recording of "Happy Days Are here Again" by Barbra Streisand is the ane where nosotros hear her interpretation of the song at its purest. She sings the vocal's verse, accompanied but past sparse pianoforte chords, and then goes into its starting time chorus as well an any jazz performer, past entering deliciously after the downbeat. The quality of her voice, her phrasing, range and passionate interpretation gear up the standard of what she would do as a singer over the adjacent 5-plus decades. The diminuendo from the climactic note, which starts with Barbra in full voice, and which she masterfully reduces to a whisper, is ane of many thrilling moments in this performance that brand information technology articulate that this was no ordinary singer.

Streisand re-recorded the vocal in January 1963 for her debut Columbia LP album,The Barbra Streisand Anthology, the music for which was arranged and conducted by Peter Matz.

Barbra sang the vocal opposite Judy Garland, who performed "Get Happy," during an October 1963 broadcast of The Judy Garland Show on tv. That performance was recorded and was first included on Streisand's 1991 box set But for the Record, and then over again on her 2002 Duetscompilation.

In June of 1967, Streisand performed the vocal for over 135,000 people in Key Park That recording was released as a part of the alive concert albumA Happening in Central Park.It was later rereleased on the compilationsBarbra Streisand'due south Greatest Hits,andThe Essential Barbra Streisand.

The song has become a signature office of Streisand'southward concert repertoire, and she has performed information technology alive on numerous occasions. I was fortunate enough to her sing information technology at a concert in her home town Brooklyn in 2013, and she stopped the prove with it, equally ever.

(2)The Label …The Story of Columbia Recordsby Gary Marmorstein (2007), 320-321

(iii) George Dale Williams (1917-1988) was built-in in New Orleans but grew upward in California. He studied at Chico State College from 1934 to 1937. His first involvement with a swing band came in 1939, when he began working for bandleader Bob Astor as pianist and arranger. In early 1940, Williams began submitting arrangements to Jimmie Lunceford. Later that year, he wrote much of the initial library for Lionel Hampton's get-go big band. In 1941, Williams worked equally trumpeter Sonny Dunham'south pianist and sometimes arranger. In 1942, he began placing some arrangements and originals with Glenn Miller. From 1943 to 1946, Williams was in military service (Merchant Marine). From 1946 until 1950, Williams acted essentially equally Gene Krupa'south assistant, writing arrangements and doing many other musical tasks. In the early 1950s, he worked for Ray Anthony. By the mid-1950s, Williams was a successful free-lance arranger and conductor in Manhattan. He had a long association with comedian and would-be musician Jackie Gleason from the mid-1950s through the 1960s, writing many of the arrangements for Gleason's highly successful mood music albums. He caused his nickname "The Fox" every bit a event of an original composition past that name that he wrote for Ray Anthony, which was recorded and successful.

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