Album Review: What Matters Most by Barbra Streisand

Streisand dialed down the diva ‘tude for 2009’s Love Is the Answer, a relatively restrained collaboration with jazz star Diana Krall that led to the legend’s first club date in decades. Here Babs goes bigger, singing the natural-fiber stuffing out of 10 dramatic tearjerkers by her old pals Alan and Marilyn Bergman (”The Way We Were,” ”You Don’t Bring Me Flowers”). On ”So Many Stars,” she even does a few bars in Portuguese, just because she can.

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Over the course of 50 years, Barbra Streisand has enjoyed a special relationship with Alan and Marilyn Bergman. All three are Brooklyn-born (in the same hospital, no less) and, as Streisand writes in the liner notes, she describes their relationship not only as a friendship but as a love affair. Produced by Streisand herself, What Matters Most presents ten of the Bergmans' songs that she had never sung before -- which makes this not just a set of re-recordings but a living document, and not just a tribute from a friend, but a set of great songs sung by a great singer.

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An unmissable feast of song from an artist who continues to surprise. Adrian Edwards 2011 At an age when many singers would be content to re-record earlier hits and package the end product as a ‘new’ release, Barbra Streisand has here produced 10 wholly new recordings of material featuring words by lyricists Alan and Marilyn Bergman, a duo with whom she has enjoyed a long and successful partnership, on both disc and film. Throwing down the gauntlet, she begins by singing the first verse of one of their best loved songs, The Windmills of Your Mind, unaccompanied.

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PISTOL ANNIES “Hell on Heels”. (Columbia Nashville).

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