To examine the career of an artist like Barbra Streisand is like stepping into a history book, a pop-culture time machine that opens up on an era of music and entertainment that wasn’t so superficially distracted by all the noise, and the music — the voice — had a resonance left to appreciate all of its own. Barbra Streisand is one of those unique talents, who in the late 50s and 60s was determined to become a star. She wanted to be a stage actress and moved ambitiously in circles that would properly position her and her gifts.

It’s ironic to imagine, that Ms. Streisand didn’t necessarily see herself as a “singer” or a musical performer first. She felt that her destiny was to become an actor but with the persistence of a friend, she entered a talent contest hosted by a small Greenwich Village club called The Lion and won. Her prize: $50 and dinner, and the attention of the proprietor of the more sophisticated supper club, the Bon Soir who immediately signed the then 18-year-old for her first, live on-stage residency and put Barbra on a stage.

With an unprecedented career that has turned her into one of the most respected living icons, Barbra Streisand has once again reached into her archives to give her audience access to previously unreleased music. The November 1962 live recording from her Bon Soir residency was intended as a debut album to be released by Columbia Records and introduce Barbra Streisand to the world. The project was eventually shelved and replaced with the studio album of 11 songs from Streisand’s live setlist. This official release of the 24-track Live At The Bon Soir marks the 60th anniversary of Streisand’s landmark residency at the Greenwich Village space that would forever be aligned with this artist’s origin story.

To appeal to the most nostalgic among us, the album is available in a 2-LP set fully remastered and re-engineered from the original masters supervised by Barbra Streisand and Grammy Award-winning music engineer Jochem van der Saag, so the audience will experience the recordings as if sitting in the Bon Soir supper club discovering Streisand for the first time. The album is also available in a 24-track CD digipak and lossless CD-quality digital download.

BARBRA STREISAND - LIVE AT THE BON SOIR | Barbra Streisand | is available to download on iTunes and additional digital music store outlets. Download from iTunes here.