Barbra Streisand singing at age 13

June 6, 2024 • 12:45 pm

Here’s an amazing and rare find: a recording of Barbra Streisand singing a popular favorite, “You’ll never know“, at age 13!  And she’s already really good at that age, recognizable as La Streisand without knowing her age.

In this video, musician and music analyst Fil takes her performance of the song apart and extols her accuracy of pitch (and deviations from perfect pitch that actually improve the song), as well as her enunciation (as in the “L” in “love” at 2:23). Now you may think that a 15-minute analysis of a two-minute performance is overdoing it, but I greatly enjoyed Fil’s sonogram analysis and his acerbic remarks about autotuning, a new phenomenon that I abhor. Autotuning is ruining popular music.

The song is perhaps most famous from the Vera Lynn version from 1943. I can imagine the GIs overseas listening to it while looking at a picture of Betty Grable.

Here’s a version in which a later Barbra does a duet with the incarnation above.

I’ll add that Babs has one of the two greatest voices of our time for singing popular music. The other, of course, is Karen Carpenter. And Joni Mitchell is up there, too. I’d add Joan Baez, but she was a folk singer.

h/t: Tom

19 thoughts on “Barbra Streisand singing at age 13”

  1. 100% agree that Streisand and Karen Carpenter had the two best voices…which is why I always practiced singing along to their songs to get better at the craft.

  4. Wings Of Pegasus is a great YouTube channel, if you like music. Fil covers so many genres and has an obvious passion for what he does. Recently outed Don Henley for miming to a backing track while supposedly singing live.

    1. Fil wastes too much time, he needs to make his point with fewer words.

      Sometimes he gets obsessed with non issues, as he did with I Couldn’t Live Without Your Love by Petula Clark. I could not see the point in comparing structure of Downtown, when both were examples of Verses Chorus Bridge!!!

  6. I saw Joan Baez play an outdoor concert with The Indigo Girls about ten years ago somewhere in Oregon. They were both fantastic.

  7. Nice one Babara! but it ain’t got no swing! Likewise Karen Carpenter could make an ol’ boot weep with that voice of hers.
    That said, I admire Nana Mouskouri if we are pondering over great artistry in song delivery.
    I shock my rock aficionado friends when I tell them this.

  11. Perhaps a thought for all of the motown/R&B voices? Aretha Franklin, Dionne Warwick, Diana Ross, Tina Turner and then later singers like Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey? These artists were household names and probably should be in the reckoning of best female singers of popular music as well.

    Personally, while I respect the skill of a Karen Carpenter, she sounds almost sedated when singing. Perhaps it’s just that dreamy style of music that is putting me off….I prefer a bit more energy and range, and thus would go with Whitney or Aretha as my top.

    Throw in Ann Wilson too from Heart as an honorable mention…

  12. I went just to hear Barbra sing and ended up watching the whole vid. Fascinating. Then I saw he had one about my hero David Bowie and watched that too, it was amazing. I’d never thought about *how* he sings. I’ll be watching more, thanks.

  13. I saw here in “Funny Girl” at 13. The hair on the back of my neck stood up when she opened her mouth and sang “I’m The Greatest Star”. It happened again when I first listened to “The Barbra Streisand Album” and after all these years it still does today every time I hear her distinct crystal clear instrument full of emotion. It’s as if she’s singing to me directly. As spectacular as Barbra is on recordings she is even better live, right into her early 70’s the last time I saw her. There’s talent and there’s a gift from God. She has the later.

  14. Streisand is easily the greatest of them all. Not only for the quality and accuracy of her voice, but for the way she’s been able to maintain it and continue to give extraordinary performances across more than six decades. Joni Mitchell certainly had a lovely voice at the start of her career, but she quickly lost her original soprano and was left with a husky alto, that however distinctive was nowhere near as beautiful. Karen Carpenter died far too early, but her health issues would almost certainly have impacted her voice had she survived.

  15. Fil wastes too much time, he needs to make his point with fewer words.

    Sometimes he gets obsessed with non issues, as he did with I Couldn’t Live Without Your Love by Petula Clark. I could not see the point in comparing structure of Downtown, when both were examples of Verses Chorus Bridge!!!

  16. Barbra Streisand overwhelms a song, I think. So does Aretha Franklin. I guess I am old fashioned, but I like Billie Holiday.

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