Till I Loved You (album)
Encyclopedia
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
.
– 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").
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 Lehman. On Back on the Blocks 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. The track was the love theme from Goya, a project developed by CBS Records
, Freddie Gershon and Allan Carr for opera
artist Plácido Domingo
playing artist, Francisco Goya
. In 2006, in an interview with TV host Jonathan Ross
, Johnson recalled about the recording of the song:
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:
Studio album
A studio album is an album made up of tracks recorded in the controlled environment of a recording studio. A studio album contains newly written and recorded or previously unreleased or remixed material, distinguishing itself from a compilation or reissue album of previously recorded material, or...
by American artist Barbra Streisand
Barbra Streisand
Barbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...
, released on October 25, 1988 on Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
. 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
Burt Bacharach
Burt F. Bacharach is an American pianist, composer and music producer. He is known for his popular hit songs and compositions from the mid-1950s through the 1980s, with lyrics written by Hal David. Many of their hits were produced specifically for, and performed by, Dionne Warwick...
and Carole Bayer Sager
Carole Bayer Sager
Carole Bayer Sager is an American lyricist, songwriter, singer, and painter.-Introduction:Born in New York City, Sager graduated from New York University, where she majored in English, dramatic arts and speech...
offered three brand new songs to the album, Quincy Jones
Quincy Jones
Quincy Delightt Jones, Jr. is an American record producer and musician. A conductor, musical arranger, film composer, television producer, and trumpeter. His career spans five decades in the entertainment industry and a record 79 Grammy Award nominations, 27 Grammys, including a Grammy Legend...
produced "The Places You Find Love" and Luther Vandross
Luther Vandross
Luther Ronzoni Vandross was an American singer-songwriter and record producer. During his career, Vandross sold over twenty-five million albums and won eight Grammy Awards including Best Male R&B Vocal Performance four times...
and Dionne Warwick
Dionne Warwick
Dionne Warwick is an American singer, actress and TV show host, who became a United Nations Global Ambassador for the Food and Agriculture Organization, and a United States Ambassador of Health....
among others added backing vocals to the track. Also, the title track (a Top 40 hit in the Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
) was a duet between Streisand and her then-boyfriend actor Don Johnson
Don Johnson
Donnie Wayne "Don" Johnson is an American actor known for his work in television and film. He played the lead role of James "Sonny" Crockett in the 1980s TV cop series, Miami Vice, which led him to huge success. He also played the lead role in the 1990s cop series, Nash Bridges...
.
History
After two successful projects with The Broadway AlbumThe Broadway Album
The Broadway Album is the twenty-fourth studio album by director, composer, actress and singer Barbra Streisand, released by Columbia Records on November 4, 1985. Consisting mainly of classic show tunes, the album marked a major shift in Barbra Streisand's career. Streisand had spent ten years...
– Streisand's 1985 return to her stage roots – and One Voice
One Voice
One Voice is the sixth studio album by singer and songwriter Barry Manilow. The album was recorded at United Western Studios and Allen Zentz Recording in Hollywood. The album was a signature of a minor decline in Manilow's success. It reached double platinum, not triple platinum, as his past six...
– 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").
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
Emotion (Barbra Streisand album)
Emotion is the twenty-third studio album released by Barbra Streisand. It was released in October 1984 and went platinum in the United States on December 18 the same year....
.
The opening song, "The Places You Find Love" was produced by Quincy Jones
Quincy Jones
Quincy Delightt Jones, Jr. is an American record producer and musician. A conductor, musical arranger, film composer, television producer, and trumpeter. His career spans five decades in the entertainment industry and a record 79 Grammy Award nominations, 27 Grammys, including a Grammy Legend...
. Later, the song appeared on his own album Back on the Block
Back on the Block
Back on the Block is a 1989 studio album produced by Quincy Jones. It features many famous and important musicians and singers, including Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis, Joe Zawinul, Ice-T, Big Daddy Kane, Sarah Vaughan, Dizzy Gillespie, George Benson, Luther Vandross, Dionne Warwick, Barry White,...
, which received a Grammy Award for Album of the Year
Grammy Award for Album of the Year
The Grammy Award for Album of the Year is the most prestigious award category at the Grammys. It has been awarded since 1959 and though it was originally presented to the artist alone, the award is now presented to the artist, the producer, the engineer and/or mixer and the mastering engineer...
in 1991. Streisand's version featured an all-star backup group - background vocals were credited to Luther Vandross
Luther Vandross
Luther Ronzoni Vandross was an American singer-songwriter and record producer. During his career, Vandross sold over twenty-five million albums and won eight Grammy Awards including Best Male R&B Vocal Performance four times...
, Dionne Warwick
Dionne Warwick
Dionne Warwick is an American singer, actress and TV show host, who became a United Nations Global Ambassador for the Food and Agriculture Organization, and a United States Ambassador of Health....
, James Ingram
James Ingram
James Ingram is an American soul musician. He is best known as a vocalist. He is also a self-taught musician who plays piano, guitar, bass, drums and keyboards...
, Howard Hewett
Howard Hewett
Howard Hewett is an American R&B and gospel singer and former lead vocalist of the R&B group Shalamar.Raised in Akron, Ohio, Hewett moved to Los Angeles. He would eventually meet Soul Train dancer and future first wife Rainey Riley-Cunningham, then a secretary of the show's creator and original...
, Jennifer Holliday
Jennifer Holliday
Jennifer-Yvette Holliday is an African-American singer and Tony Award-winning actress. She started her career on Broadway in musicals such as Dreamgirls, and later became a successful recording artist...
, Peggi Blu, Clif Magness, Siedah Garrett
Siedah Garrett
Siedah Garrett is an American songwriter and singer.-Biography:She appeared as a contestant on Password Plus in 1980.She performed "One Man Woman" on Quincy Jones' Grammy-Award winning "Back on the Block."...
and Edie Lehman. On Back on the Blocks version, Siedah Garrett
Siedah Garrett
Siedah Garrett is an American songwriter and singer.-Biography:She appeared as a contestant on Password Plus in 1980.She performed "One Man Woman" on Quincy Jones' Grammy-Award winning "Back on the Block."...
sang the first verse and chorus, followed by Chaka Khan
Chaka Khan
Chaka Khan , frequently known as the Queen of Funk, is a 10-time Grammy Award winning American singer-songwriter who gained fame in the 1970s as the frontwoman and focal point of the funk band Rufus. While still a member of the group in 1978, Khan embarked on a successful solo career...
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
Miami Vice
Miami Vice is an American television series produced by Michael Mann for NBC. The series starred Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas as two Metro-Dade Police Department detectives working undercover in Miami. It ran for five seasons on NBC from 1984–1989...
superstar actor Don Johnson
Don Johnson
Donnie Wayne "Don" Johnson is an American actor known for his work in television and film. He played the lead role of James "Sonny" Crockett in the 1980s TV cop series, Miami Vice, which led him to huge success. He also played the lead role in the 1990s cop series, Nash Bridges...
, whom Streisand was dating at the time of recording. The track was the love theme from Goya, a project developed by CBS Records
CBS Records
CBS Records is a record label founded by CBS Corporation in 2006 to take advantage of music from its entertainment properties owned by CBS Television Studios. The initial label roster consisted of only three artists; rock band Señor Happy and singer/songwriters Will Dailey and P.J...
, Freddie Gershon and Allan Carr for opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
artist Plácido Domingo
Plácido Domingo
Plácido Domingo KBE , born José Plácido Domingo Embil, is a Spanish tenor and conductor known for his versatile and strong voice, possessing a ringing and dramatic tone throughout its range...
playing artist, Francisco Goya
Francisco Goya
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker regarded both as the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns. Goya was a court painter to the Spanish Crown, and through his works was both a commentator on and chronicler of his era...
. In 2006, in an interview with TV host Jonathan Ross
Jonathan Ross
Jonathan Ross may refer to:* Jonathan Ross , English television and radio personality* Jonathan Ross , United States Senator, Justice of the Vermont Supreme Court* Jonathon Ross , former Australian rules footballer...
, Johnson recalled about the recording of the song:
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
Phil Ramone
Phil Ramone is a South-African violinist, composer, recording engineer, and record producer.-Biography:As a young child in South Africa, Ramone was a musical prodigy, beginning to play the violin at age three and performing for Queen Elizabeth II at age ten...
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
The Phantom of the Opera (1986 musical)
The Phantom of the Opera is a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on the French novel Le Fantôme de l'Opéra by Gaston Leroux.The music was composed by Lloyd Webber, and most lyrics were written by Charles Hart, with additional lyrics by Richard Stilgoe. Alan Jay Lerner was an early collaborator,...
. Ramone commented:
Track listing
- "The Places You Find Love" (Glen Ballard, Clifton Magness) 5:09
- "On My Way To You" (Alan BergmanAlan BergmanAlan Bergman is an American lyricist and songwriter.-Life & career:Born in Brooklyn, New York, he studied at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and UCLA. His involvement in the entertainment industry began in the early 1950s as a director of children's television shows...
, Marilyn BergmanMarilyn BergmanMarilyn Bergman is a composer, songwriter and author.She was born Marilyn Keith in Brooklyn, New York and studied psychology and English at New York University...
, Michel LegrandMichel LegrandMichel Jean Legrand is a French musical composer, arranger, conductor, and pianist...
) 3:44 - "Till I Loved You" (Maury YestonMaury YestonMaury Yeston is an American composer, lyricist, educator and musicologist.He is known for writing the music and lyrics to Broadway musicals, including Nine in 1982, and Titanic in 1997, both of which won Tony Awards for best musical and best score. He also won a Drama Desk Award for Nine...
) 5:10 - "Love Light" (Burt BacharachBurt BacharachBurt F. Bacharach is an American pianist, composer and music producer. He is known for his popular hit songs and compositions from the mid-1950s through the 1980s, with lyrics written by Hal David. Many of their hits were produced specifically for, and performed by, Dionne Warwick...
, Carole Bayer SagerCarole Bayer SagerCarole Bayer Sager is an American lyricist, songwriter, singer, and painter.-Introduction:Born in New York City, Sager graduated from New York University, where she majored in English, dramatic arts and speech...
) 4:32 - "All I Ask of YouAll I Ask of You"All I Ask of You" is a song from the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical version of The Phantom of the Opera.It was released as a single on both 7 and 12 inch vinyl in 1986 by Cliff Richard and Sarah Brightman.It was certified Silver in the UK....
" (Andrew Lloyd WebberAndrew Lloyd WebberAndrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber is an English composer of musical theatre.Lloyd Webber has achieved great popular success in musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 13 musicals, a song cycle, a set of...
, Charles HartCharles Hart (lyricist)Charles Hart is a British lyricist, songwriter and musician. He is best known for re-writing the lyrics to, and contributing to the book of Andrew Lloyd Webber's stage musical The Phantom of the Opera. He also co-wrote the lyrics to Lloyd Webber's 1989 musical Aspects of Love...
, Richard StilgoeRichard StilgoeRichard Henry Simpson Stilgoe OBE is a British songwriter, lyricist and musician. He is noted for clever wordplay as much as for his music....
) 4:02 - "You And Me For Always" (Burt BacharachBurt BacharachBurt F. Bacharach is an American pianist, composer and music producer. He is known for his popular hit songs and compositions from the mid-1950s through the 1980s, with lyrics written by Hal David. Many of their hits were produced specifically for, and performed by, Dionne Warwick...
, Carole Bayer SagerCarole Bayer SagerCarole Bayer Sager is an American lyricist, songwriter, singer, and painter.-Introduction:Born in New York City, Sager graduated from New York University, where she majored in English, dramatic arts and speech...
) 3:49 - "Why Let It Go?" (Alan BergmanAlan BergmanAlan Bergman is an American lyricist and songwriter.-Life & career:Born in Brooklyn, New York, he studied at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and UCLA. His involvement in the entertainment industry began in the early 1950s as a director of children's television shows...
, Marilyn BergmanMarilyn BergmanMarilyn Bergman is a composer, songwriter and author.She was born Marilyn Keith in Brooklyn, New York and studied psychology and English at New York University...
, Alan Hawkshaw, Barry Mason) 4:25 - "Two People" (Alan BergmanAlan BergmanAlan Bergman is an American lyricist and songwriter.-Life & career:Born in Brooklyn, New York, he studied at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and UCLA. His involvement in the entertainment industry began in the early 1950s as a director of children's television shows...
, Marilyn BergmanMarilyn BergmanMarilyn Bergman is a composer, songwriter and author.She was born Marilyn Keith in Brooklyn, New York and studied psychology and English at New York University...
, Barbra StreisandBarbra StreisandBarbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...
) 3:40 - "What Were We Thinking Of?" (Antonina ArmatoAntonina ArmatoAntonina Armato is a songwriter and music producer who is most known for co-writing the #1 single "I Still Believe" and co-writing another #1 single "She Ain't Worth It." She has written or produced over 20 Top Ten singles...
, Scott Cutler) 4:28 - "Some Good Things Never Last" (Mark Radice) 4:20
- "One More Time Around" (Burt BacharachBurt BacharachBurt F. Bacharach is an American pianist, composer and music producer. He is known for his popular hit songs and compositions from the mid-1950s through the 1980s, with lyrics written by Hal David. Many of their hits were produced specifically for, and performed by, Dionne Warwick...
, Carole Bayer SagerCarole Bayer SagerCarole Bayer Sager is an American lyricist, songwriter, singer, and painter.-Introduction:Born in New York City, Sager graduated from New York University, where she majored in English, dramatic arts and speech...
, Tom Keane) 3:44
Chart performance
| Chart | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Dutch Album Chart | 5 |
| US Billboard Top 200 Album Chart | 10 |
| Australian Album Chart | 18 |
| Spanish Album Chart | 19 |
| UK Album Chart | 29 |
| German Album Chart | 33 |
| French Album Chart | 35 |