Barbra Streisand Archives

Ray Charles & Barbra Streisand: “Crying Time” (Duet of the Day)

In 1973, Barbra Streisand joined Ray Charles on the Buck Owens classic, “Crying Time.” Although many know that Charles had a hit with the song, not many know that Streisand also recorded her own version.

Buck Owens wrote “Crying Time” and originally released it as a B-side to “I’ve Got a Tiger By the Tail” in 1964. Although Owens’s version of “Crying Time” did not chart, Ray Charles decided to record the song. He released it as the title track for his album Crying Time in 1966.

The song features a typical country and western theme, with the singer focusing on a lost love. The singer’s lover, however, has not left yet. But the singer knows the lover is leaving by the look in her eyes and the way she holds the singer. One may wonder whether the singer’s senses are correct, but late in the song in a key verse, the singer notes, “Now you say you’ve found someone that you love better.” But then, in what may be the song’s most interesting line, the singer adds, “That’s the way it’s happened every time before.”

In other words, it appears that the lover has cheated on the singer more than once before. So, while it is a song about love lost and Charles’s voice captures the aching pain of such loss, the reality is probably that the singer is better off and should find a new lover anyway.

By the time he released “Crying Time,” Ray Charles had already established himself as a wonderful interpreter of country music, including with his 1962 albums Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music and Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, Vol 2. Those albums also established his skill in selecting country songs, whether or not they were big hits originally.

Charles’s version of “Crying Time” went on to make the top ten on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart, the R&B chart, and the easy listening chart. The recording also earned two Grammy Awards.

In 1973, Barbra Streisand hosted her own CBS television special, Barbra Streisand…And Other Musical Instruments. In the special, she and Ray Charles sang “Crying Time” together. Check it out.

Streisand subsequently released an album featuring much of the music from the special. The album, also called Barbra Streisand…And Other Musical Instruments (1973), however, did not include the “Crying Time” duet. Streisand did include the song (without Charles) on her later album Butterfly (1974).

To be honest, I prefer the individual versions, but hearing and seeing the two all-time musical greats together is pretty cool.

What do you think of the duet? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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“Paul Williams Still Alive” (Missed Movies)

If you grew up in the 1970s, you could not have missed singer-songwriter-actor-showman Paul Williams. He was everywhere. Williams wrote songs like “We’ve Only Just Begun,” the Oscar-winning “Evergreen” (co-written with Barbra Streisand), the theme to Love Boat, and the Muppet classic “Rainbow Connection.” He also wrote one of the first 45 rpm singles I bought as a kid, Three Dog Night’s “Just an Old Fashioned Love Song.” He appeared in movies like Smokey and The Bandit (1977) and Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973).

Additionally, Paul Williams was a regular on Johnny Carson’s late night show and appeared on many other TV shows like The Muppets. And, just as suddenly as he came into our lives and dominated TV, movies, and radio, he disappeared.

Director Stephen Kessler was a big fan of Williams as a child, and like many of us decades later, wondered what had happened to Williams and assumed he was dead. So he tracked down the singer, who was still touring in small venues, and began a documentary, Paul Williams Still Alive (2011).

The movie is not a straight-up documentary about the career of Paul Williams, as Kessler ends up being a part of the story of the film. Surprisingly for someone who was everywhere in popular culture at one time, Williams does not seem to embrace being in what is in some ways a modern reality show, with cameras following him every place he goes.

Williams is also somewhat resistant to analyzing his own life in front of the camera, putting off Kessler’s attempts to get Williams to discuss his feelings about how drugs affected his career. So we have lots of shots of Williams being slightly annoyed at the camera and Kessler’s digging.

Instead of deep introspection from Willimas, Kessler shows his own feelings about traveling with Williams in the Philippines (Kessler is scared, while Williams seems to soldier through every adversity). And Kessler tries to provoke a response from Williams by getting him to watch a talk show where Williams was obviously high.

How much you enjoy the film may depend on how you appreciate the focus on the director-subject relationship. It makes the movie a little less traditional and might engage some viewers more than a straight-up documentary. I appreciated the other part of the film that told us more about Paul Williams, his career, and his current life. But I must admit that it was the combination of the two film styles that told me other things about Paul Williams, such as the way he still perseveres and his refreshing desire to avoid revealing everything about himself.

While Williams rejects the opportunity for self-analysis, you still get to see what happened to one of the big icons of the 1970s and learn a little about the man indirectly. If you ever wondered what happened to Paul Williams, Paul Williams Still Alive is worth your time.

Other Reviews Because Why Should You Trust Me? Rotten Tomatoes reveals that critics liked Paul Williams Still Alive more than general audience members, giving the film a 97% critics rating and a 79% audience rating. Donald Liebenson at the Chicago Sun-Times found the movie interesting but was annoyed by the way the director inserted himself into the story. Meanwhile, Sodajerker has an audio interview with Paul Williams where Williams discusses his career and the documentary.

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Hands Across America: Holding Hands in May 1986

May 25 is the anniversary of 1986’s Hands Across America. For those of you too young to remember, Hands Across America is something that people did before we had the Internet. Americans across the United States gathered to hold hands in an attempt to create a 4,125-mile human chain from coast-to-coast through seventeen states.

They held hands for about fifteen minutes, sang the “Hands Across America” theme song (recorded by Voices of America), “America the Beautiful,” and “We Are the World,” which had been released a year earlier in 1985. And this event occurred in the days before we had hand sanitizer.

Hands Across America,
Hands Across this land I love;
United we fall,
United we stand,
Hands Across America.

Did it succeed? Well, the chain ended up with broken places in several barren areas. But millions of people across the country, including many famous celebrities, gathered that day for the event.

President Reagan held hands in Washington, connected at least theoretically, to Texas migrant farm workers who organized a 51-mile chain in Texas. And we had celebrities. The chain included Oprah, Jerry Seinfeld, Jesse Jackson, Barbra Streisand, Rev. Billy Graham, Prince, Bill Clinton, Kenny Rogers, and Shamu the killer whale. There is even a book about the day.

The event did not reach its goal to raise $50 million for the hungry, and the promotion costs were high, but it raised around $20 million for soup kitchens and shelters, while raising awareness about the issue. And it gave us something to do.

Yes, I say “us” because I participated in the event. I was on a trip traveling through Arizona on that date with a group of friends. We had not planned to be in a particular spot, but when we saw the line forming in the desert (see photo above), we all jumped out of the vehicle and joined in the festivities.

Everyone was friendly and happy for those fifteen minutes. As silly and cheesy as it was, maybe we should do it more often.

See these people over there?
They are my sister and brother,
When they laugh I laugh,
When they cry I cry,
When they need me I’ll be right there by their side.