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Barbra Streisand’s Illustrious Career, Upcoming Collaboration With Adele, And Unapologetically Perfectionistic Nature

By Stacey Cole
Published on: 05:05 PST, Aug 16, 2016

Barbra Streisand is an iconic singer, songwriter, and actress whose career has spanned the course of six decades. She is one of a very small group of entertainers who are proud recipients of a Grammy, Emmy, Oscar, and Tony Award. The legendary singer shot to fame in 1962 when she starred in I Can Get It for You Wholesale, a Broadway musical which marked Barbra’s stage debut. Later, she also performed in Funny Girl, another Broadway musical which earned her a Tony nomination.

After starting a successful career as a singer in the 1960s, Barbara Streisand also ventured into films, but she remains first and foremost a singer with over 68.5 million albums sold in the USA and 245 million records sold across the globe during her illustrious career.

Additionally, Barbra Streisand is the only artist to have made it to the top of the Billboard charts in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and again in the 21st century. Apart from singing beautiful melodies, the iconic singer has also delivered enchanting duets by performing with legendary artists like Elvis Presley, Neil Diamond, Billy Joel, Stevie Wonder, Andrea Bocelli, Lionel Richie, and Babyface. But far from being stuck in the past, the “I Finally Found Someone” singer has also collaborated with younger musicians like Blake Shelton, John Legend, and John Mayer.

Now, Barbra has returned back to her Broadway roots by singing Broadway classics along with ten of the biggest A-list celebrities in Hollywood. She collaborated with Melissa McCarthy, Anne Hathaway, Patrick Wilson, Antonio Banderas, and Jamie Foxx for Encore: Movie Partners Sing Broadway, her 35th studio album, which is set for release on August 26, 2016.

Barbra hinted about her new venture by tweeting about the duet that she had performed with Alec Baldwin. According to Entertainment Weekly, Barbra tweeted about her perfect pairing with Alec for the duet “The Best Thing That Has Ever Happened,” written by Stephen Sondheim for a 2003 Broadway musical.

“It’s a charming song, and we have Alec Baldwin, an actor who I’ve always really admired. He was perfect casting. It’s that combination with me; he’s a New Yorker. He’s from the theater.”

Talented musicians from every generation are always scouting for opportunities to collaborate with the legendary Barbra Streisand as any collaboration with the “It Had To Be You” singer is considered a hallmark of success in the music circuit. According to Metro, Adele, the English singer and songwriter, is looking forward to what is sure to be an amazing collaboration with Barbra Streisand.

And if the project proceeds according to plan, the collaboration will be one of the biggest pairings of musical heavyweights in the present day music industry. The 28-year-old singer had a discussion with Barbra about the project when they met in Los Angeles, and it is now up to the managers at Columbia Records to bring the collaboration to fruition. Despite their age differences, the two celebrities have vowed that their busy schedules won’t hold them back from working together to sing duets based on laid-back jazz lounge sounds.

According to Metro, an inside source shed light on the prospective collaboration that is very likely to be both important and lucrative for both Streisand and Adele.

“The feeling is that the tracks would most likely be new versions of their own best-known numbers with maybe one or two new songs added to the mix.”

Although Barbra Streisand is considered as a gifted artist, she is also considered to be a “control-freak perfectionist” by many in the industry. However, the diva is unapologetic about her perfectionist approach, and she holds the opinion that the unnecessary criticism is indicative of sexism.

Barbra is known to exercise complete control over her work to ensure that the audiences love the movies and albums that she has deeply cared about. According to Time magazine, actor Hugh Grant has expressed his desire to be a perfectionist like Barbara Streisand so he can have editorial control over his own movies.

In fact, the actor has stated that he wants to drive people nuts by being “Barbra Streisand in trousers.”

[Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images]

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anne hathaway jamie foxx hugh grant barbra streisand Antonio Banderas
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