Harper's Bazaar October 2015 |
Growing up, I didn't want to look like Barbra. I was too young when I was introduced to her to want to look like a grown woman. But oh how I wanted to be able to sing like her. My father was a great one to play records of great women singers. His taste usually leaned toward the jazz singers like Billie Holliday, Ella Fitzgerald, and Diana Shuur, but he had a Streisand record in his collection. And it soon became my favorite.
"Funny Girl" was released in 1968, which made me 6 years old when my grandmother took me and my siblings to see it in the movie theatre. We never went to the movie theatre, so it was quite a treat; even though, it was not a movie that you would think to take four children under the age 9 to go see. But on that Saturday afternoon in Evergreen Park, I was given one of the best musical gifts of my life: Barbra. That movie blew my socks off. I may not have understood everything that was going on in the movie or with a grandmother who didn't have anyone but the four of us to see it with, but it melted in to me. I clearly remember going home and putting the Barbra record on the player to sing with her. I swore that I sounded just like her. I didn't, of course. But I felt it. And I've loved her ever since.
Maybe I should give Donna a call and invite her and her friend over. I have the record player! Wouldn't that be something.
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