Barbra Streisand, Harry Richman Enter National Recording Registry
Barbra Streisand’s take on Jule Styne and Bob Merrill’s “People,” immortalized in the 1968 film “Funny Girl,” and Harry Richman’s take on Irving Berlin’s “Puttin’ on the Ritz” are among this year’s inductees to the National Recording Registry.
As Billboard reported, each year the Registry selects 25 songs or albums to be preserved by the Library of Congress. This year’s inductees, in addition to Streisand and Richman, include N.W.A.’s “Straight Outta Compton,” Judy Garland’s “Over the Rainbow,” and the first broadcast of All Things Considered.
Billboard quoted Streisand as calling the recognition “humbling and gratifying.”
“I believe ‘People’ touched our common desire to relate to others with love and caring, and I’ve always tried to express this in my renditions of this magical song,” she said.
According to the Library of Congress, inductees to the Registry are chosen with the goal of “showcasing the range and diversity of American recorded sound heritage in order to increase preservation awareness.”
2016’s inductees included two takes on Kurt Weill’s “Mack the Knife.”
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO