Barbra's “Butterfly” Album Untracked?
June 25, 1974
By Joyce Haber
“Barbra has this tremendous thing of knowing exactly what's right for her,” says Al Schmitt, the respected veteran recording engineer of La Streisand. “But right now, it seems, that's gone out the window. Just gone. She's never let anyone direct her career this way.” Who is directing Barbra's career? It's Jon Peters, the well-known Beverly Hills hairstylist and estranged husband of Lesley Ann Warren. Peters, as I told you some time ago, is Barbra's Big Romance and is producing her upcoming album, Butterfly, for Columbia.
But something went wrong. “They've recorded seven or eight songs for this new LP,” Schmitt continues, “Columbia played them and they were unhappy with what they heard. Barbra always gives me goosebumps: She has that incredible sound. This album has a flat, one-dimensional sound. It needs to be opened up. It needs climaxes.
“Peters is a nice guy, but he's not a record producer. Jon said to me, ‘I have a business to run; I can't be here every day.’ I worked for three days on Butterfly and left because we couldn't come to an agreement. Essentially Peters wants all the money, and I'd be doing all the work.” Schmitt, who has been in the business for 24 years, produces certain LPs and was the engineer on Barbra's best-selling The Way We Were. He's now at work on rock-folk signer Dave Mason's latest LP, again for Columbia.
“Peters as a record producer stands to make $100,000 to $150,000 on this. I would have made nothing compared to that,” Al says. Some interesting statistics: “Record producers often work on a percentage basis. The Way We Were album has sold about 1.5 million copies. Good producers get 3% of the retail cost of each album. Or maybe 15 cents from each LP. A less good producer might get to 2-1/2%.
“Barbra probably gets between 45 and 50 cents per album. She doesn't have to pay any recording costs. She's a big seller. Rock stars make more per album because they often write and publish their own music. They can make as much as 75 cents per album.” Schmitt guesses that Streisand will record about four more songs and that out of the 12, “hopefully they'll have nine that are usable. I understand,” he concludes, “that they'll drop this LP until the fall. There's no pressure to get it out quickly.”
Meanwhile, Barbra last week was shooting a scene for Funny Lady, Ray Stark's sequel to Funny Girl, at the Beverly Hills Hotel. When my assistant Beverly Alison arrived, La Streisand was closeted in a suite with Kay Pownall, who is (not John Peters) her hairdresser on the movie, and Don Cash, her makeup man. Barbra was waiting for the next setup. That morning, as the late Fanny Brice, she'd shot a musical number and a sequence where Barbra rushed down the green-and-white-floral papered corridor to meet Jimmy Caan, who plays her second husband, Billy Rose, in Cleveland. In this fictionalized version, the scene is crucial to the plot. Fanny married Rose but continued to think she loved her first husband, Nick Arnstein. It is here that she realizes she really loves Rose. In real life, the last Fanny once said: “I never loved the man I liked (Rose) and I never liked the man I loved (Arnstein).”
[...] Director-writer Paul Morrissey (Andy Warhol's Frankenstein) threaded his way through the crowd that was waiting to catch a glimpse of Barbra. Among them was Newsweek's Martin Kasindorf, who's doing a production story on Lady, and a representative of Italy's Amica magazine, which is planning a fashion layout of Barbra—whenever they can get her down to the hotel's pool. Barbra's personal maid, Gracie Davidson, rushed by with four suitcases. Maybe for the fashion layout. Finally, Barbra appeared to talk with Beverly, who asked her about a sequence shot two weeks ago: In it, Barbra had to fly in plane-freak director George Roy Hill's 37-year-old biplane. “Oh,” said Barbra, gesturing as enthusiastically and dramatically (and comically) as Fanny Brice, “I nearly had a heart attack. I was so scared, but I knew I should do it myself. We went up and the plane just kept going. The pilot was fiddling with the radio. The first thing I thought was He's kidnaping me. Then I though The radio's dead; the guy can't land. What happened was that they radioed him he couldn't land because it was so crowded at Santa Monica airport. Here I am risking my life in this open cockpit for a movie! And then Herb (Ross) tells me we have to do it over!”
Dangerous stunts: the life of a superstar.
Streisand “Happiest She's Ever Been”
June 27, 1974
By Joyce Haber
How does it feel to be awakened by Barbra Streisand? I found out two days ago when the telephone jarred me out of my sleep. Immediately, I knew it was new Barbra. The voice was soft, apologetic: “Listen, I'm sorry to wake you, but I have to go to work,” she said. La Streisand, of course, is finishing up Ray Stark's Funny Lady for Columbia.
“Why don't you go splash some water on your face?” the new, warm Barbra suggested. By that time, I was awake and aware that she must be calling about my Tuesday column. I had printed, as reported to me by three sources and double-checked, that Columbia Records called in a special, veteran engineer to work on Barbra's next album, Butterfly. I had quoted the engineer, Al Schmitt, at some length, including Schmitt's statement that Barbra's beau and the LP's producer, Jon Peters, a Beverly Hills hairstylist, is “not a record producer.” Peters is producing the album.
“Is Schmitt trying to imply that I've given up my career for Jon Peters?” Barbra asked. “I don't even know this Schmitt. The only thing he said that's true is ‘Barbra has this thing of knowing exactly what's right for her.’” With that I must agree. “This is possibly the best singing I've ever done,” Barbra added. That's what Al Schmitt told Jon. It's the most open, the most free, the most happy.”
Gravitating Toward Butterflies
“I'm an artist. Jon and I have to deal with ourselves on two levels—as creative people and as lovers. The reason we're calling it Butterfly is that when we first met he said I reminded him of a butterfly. He gave me this 100-year-old Indian butterfly. Both of us gravitate toward butterflies.
“Jon designed the album cover. For the first time in my life, I'm the happiest I've ever been. My work has become fun for me, and it used to be a drag. My attitude has changed towards people. I'm less afraid. That's Jon. It kills me to have him put down more than to have me put down.”
According to Barbra and Columbia Records VP Charles Koppelman, Mr. Schmitt was “fired”: He didn't leave. “He's being vindictive,” says Miss Streisand. Adds Koppelman: “Under no circumstances would Columbia sanction an album with Peters and Barbra unless I was convinced it was absolutely right. I've had about 10 meetings with Peters. He's an immensely talented man.
“Schmitt went in to listen to the album. He came out and said it wasn't right. He told Jon he wanted to coproduce it with him. Obviously, he was upset because he was going to be on the gravy train. He told Peters, ‘I've been in the business 25 years and you've been in it 25 minutes.’ (Koppelman laughed.) It just sometimes happens that 25 minutes produces genius.
“This album is not only one of the best, it'll be one of the biggest Barbra's ever made. She wouldn't be closing our convention in August singing songs from it if I didn't think so.”
Barbra went further, explaining that “from a sound point of view, Columbia may have wanted more amplification. You can have 100 mixers on one song. Schmitt did three cuts. I didn't like them. I wanted this soft, then rising.”
From the sound point of view, La Streisand is indeed a new woman, which she attributes to Peters (he's estranged from Lesley Ann Warren, who has “no comment”). Barbra is soft, and still rising.
End.
Related Page: Butterfly (1974 album page) >>
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