Till I Loved You (album)

Till I Loved You
Studio album by Barbra Streisand
Released	October 25, 1988
Genre	Pop
Length	47:07
Label	Columbia
Producer	Quincy Jones, Barbra Streisand, Phil Ramone, Burt Bacharach, Carole Bayer Sager, Denny Diante
Barbra Streisand chronology
One Voice (1987) Till I Loved You (1988) A Collection: Greatest Hits.. and More (1989)

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[1]
People Magazine	Unfavorable[2]
Los Angeles Times	Favorable[3]

Till I Loved You is a studio album by American artist Barbra Streisand, released on October 25, 1988 on Columbia Records. The album was particularly notable both for its thematic structure (its eleven songs chronicle a romance's beginning, middle and end) and its high-budget production, as many guest writers, producers and musicians participated during its making – Burt Bacharach and Carole Bayer Sager offered three brand new songs to the album, Quincy Jones produced "The Places You Find Love" and Luther Vandross and Dionne Warwick among others added backing vocals to the track. Also, the title track (a Top 40 hit in the Billboard Hot 100) was a duet between Streisand and her then-boyfriend, actor Don Johnson.^[4] According to the liner notes of Barbra's retrospective box set: Just for the Record, the album also received a record certification in the Netherlands and in New Zealand.^[5]

History

After two successful projects with The Broadway Album – Streisand's 1985 return to her stage roots – and One Voice – her first full-length live concert recorded in September 1986, which was issued on both disc and video with benefit purposes, Barbra Streisand decided to make a return to the pop scene. Till I Loved You was conceived as a lushly romantic album, with a particular concept – it followed the stages of a relationship from the beginning (in songs like "The Places You Find Love") to the end ("Some Good Things Never Last"), and then wrapped up the theme with a positive song about the future ("One More Time Around").^[4]

Many writers, producers and musicians appeared on the album, making of the album a high-budget project as happened with Streisand's previous pop mainstream project, 1984's Emotion.

The opening song, "The Places You Find Love" was produced by Quincy Jones. Later, the song appeared on his own album Back on the Block, which received a Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 1991. Streisand's version featured an all-star backup group - background vocals were credited to Luther Vandross, Dionne Warwick, James Ingram, Howard Hewett, Jennifer Holliday, Peggi Blu, Clif Magness, Siedah Garrett and Edie Lehmann. On Back on the Block's version, Siedah Garrett sang the first verse and chorus, followed by Chaka Khan singing the second verse. Jones utilized the same arrangement and background singers for his album, and also incorporated some African chanting during the bridge and climax of the song. "The Places You Find Love" was the only time Barbra and Quincy Jones have worked together (until "We Are The World 25 (For Haiti)" in 2010).

Another highlight from the album was the title track, which was a duet with the Miami Vice superstar actor Don Johnson, whom Streisand was dating at the time of recording.^[6] The track was the love theme from Goya, a project developed by CBS Records, Freddie Gershon and Allan Carr for opera singer Plácido Domingo playing artist Francisco Goya. In 2006, in an interview with TV host Jonathan Ross, Johnson recalled about the recording of the song:

... It was amazing. First of all she's probably the diva of all time, in terms of voices... I was under contract to Columbia at the time – her studio. Of course, at the time I was the "biggy-wow-wow" in television and film and with Miami Vice. And I'd just put out a record that had made the Top 5. This is how I met Barbra – Columbia came to me and said, "Would you like to do a duet with Barbra?" At first I said it's a different kind of music. Then I went, "What are you, crazy? You've got to do a duet with Barbra Streisand!

There was studio glass between us so that she could watch me sing – because it was a duet. It was a little nerve wracking, as I recall. She's a perfectionist... She's impeccable about everything, impeccable about every note. I want to be that way; it's just that I don't have the equipment that she has to do it. She is a wonderful, wonderful person. She's one of the most intelligent persons I've ever been around in my life, and she's very funny and has a humongous heart. She's a really terrific person.

— Don Johnson

Burt Bacharach produced and wrote three tracks on Till I Loved You with his wife and lyricist Carole Bayer Sager. According to his own words, "Barbra has great range. Nobody sounds like her when she's up that high, with that kind of clarity and purity. You can tell right away it's her. You can't say that about many singers."

Phil Ramone produced the song "All I Ask of You", which was originally a duet in Andrew Lloyd Webber's blockbuster musical The Phantom of the Opera. Ramone commented:

... It's an interesting concept – messing with Andrew Lloyd Webber stuff. It's not easy. Barbra's always approached music from both a lyrical point of view and a sensibility of, ‘why can’t I sing this? Why wouldn’t I sing this? Why wouldn’t I sing this to him?’ You know, it's established for too long that it's a duet. You can take a song and re-voice it or change keys. But this song is written as a duet. I don’t know, we just took a shot... We worked on it so it could be a meaningful song, as it is.

You always call [the lyricists]. It's one of the classic things that Barbra's capable of. She's not afraid to make a change, make a lyrical point more poignant. Her friends, you know, are the Bergmans. Barbra's the queen of listening and looking at lyrics. All of us who have been around great songs know what that means.

— Phil Ramone

Track listing

Chart and certifications

References