An Evening With Barbra Streisand

1966 Concert Tour

Festival Field

Newport, Rhode Island

July 30, 1966

(Above: Wire photo of Streisand. Caption reads: "With pet poodle Sady [Sadie] under her arm musical comedy star Barbra Streisand arrives at Newport, R.I., today for one-night appearance at music festival tonight. Barbra is expecting her first baby in December.")

The first stop on Barbra's short, 1966 concert tour was Festival Field in Newport, Rhode Island—home of the Newport Jazz Festival. Peter Matz was Barbra's concert conductor.

Newport poster, stub

(Above photos: Streisand on stage; a backstage press pass; a torn ticket stub.)

George Wein—an American jazz promoter and producer who founded the summer Newport Jazz Festival—wrote about Streisand's gig in 1966 in his book, Myself Among Others:

Streisand was on tour, and the comedian Alan King and a partner of his, Walter Hyman, had made arrangements with her management to present her in several cities ... I can't recall the exact deal I made with King & Hyman, but I believe they took the risk and paid me some percentage. I provided certain elements of a production for my share in the profits.

[ ... ] Part of Streisand's show called for a scrim. A scrim is a sheer screen that, depending on the direction of the lighting, can be either opaque or translucent. I wasn't aware of this element of the production, but on the afternoon before the concert, Walter Hyman and I were conversing in the administration office on the field. Looking out through a window that overlooked the stage, I saw this workmanlike exercise underway. The festival production team and Streisand's guys were hanging this enormous scrim across the expanse of the stage. It was obvious that this was an expensive process; the festival had never done anything this elaborate.

I said to Walter Hyman, “Wow, you're really doing a first-class production. This must be costing you a fortune.”

Looking at me in surprise, he said, “I thought you were paying for it.”

During the concert, Barbra introduced songs from her upcoming album Je m'appelle Barbra. “I hope I remember the woyds,” she joked in her charming Brooklynese.

Newport Streisand poster

Newport Review

FANS SAY BARBRA NEVER IN BETTER SHAPE

By Judy Heyman and Al Cohn

Barbra Streisand stood on the stage of the Newport Music Festival Stadium at the end of her concert Saturday night, finished with a full evening of singing and clowning. She is about midway through her pregnancy now and was clearly exhausted, but the sellout crowd of 16,000 applauded as though it would never tire. "Thank you," she was finally able to say, grinning, "thank you for coming to see such a schlep."

Some schlep. The Brooklyn-born singer, recently returned from the London run of "Funny Girl," might have been wondering if her popularity had waned during her absence. The reaction to the concert here had to be a resounding answer. Whatever she did — and she did plenty — drew enthusiastic cheering, much of it coming out of standing ovations.

Miss Streisand came on stage in a flowing, floor-length brown and red chiffon dress and led off in a straight style, with serious offerings of "Where Am I Going?" and "No Strings." But it wasn't long before she was back to her familiar kooky self, kibitzing with a little-girl rendition of "I Hate Music" and poking fun at the folk-song rage.

In one jab at the folk idiom, she started telling a ludicrous story about a girl from Cambodia who was going to kill herself when she lost her lover to her sister, but decided against singing the song that she said would follow. "You're not laughing," she said, "so I'm not singing." Later she sang a spoof of a folk song, stopping every few words to explain the strange vernacular.

For the second half of the concert, Miss Streisand appeared in a black fitted sequin gown. The highlight of this portion of the concert was a well received medley of her best known songs, including "People," "He Touched Me" and "Second Hand Rose." In addition to the ballads and novelty numbers, she sang several blues songs, like "Cry Me a River."

After the concert, Miss Streisand held a brief press conference, which amounted to more clowning around. When will she go back to work after her baby is born? "Never," she giggled before saying it would be about two months afterward. Were the flowing gowns worn with the purpose of playing down her "condition"? "I always wear dresses of this style," she said wryly, "only now they're right for the occasion."

Newport Scrapbook

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