Music

By ELIZABETH L. BLAND

In 1955, 13-year-old Barbra Streisand and her mother met a piano player in the Catskills who steered them to a Brooklyn studio where, for a few dollars, they could record some songs. He accompanied them but, during Mrs. Streisand's efforts, intruded heavily on the vocals. Barbra would have none of that. "No, no," she told him, "we'll just do a little ((piano)) interlude and then I'll come back in." That recording, of You'll Never Know, begins and ends Streisand's new four-CD boxed set, JUST FOR THE RECORD, nicely framing the point that even then her talent -- and chutzpah -- were well developed. The set, which spans three decades from stage, screen and studio, includes outtakes and unreleased gems as well as Streisand standards like People. It charts her fast climb chronologically, with especially fascinating bits from the young years: displaying a studied charm on early TV appearances, singing in a Greenwich Village club, holding her own in a chat with Judy Garland and Ethel Merman. The results are at once nostalgic and stunningly fresh. New fans needn't apply, but old ones will feel that, as another of Streisand's hits put it, Happy Days Are Here Again. -- E.L.B.