My Name Is Barbra, Two...

by William RuhlmannMy Name Is Barbra, Two... is not exactly a sequel to My Name Is Barbra, though it contains a medley of songs about poverty that was performed as one of the three sections of the TV special. For the most part, this is just the next Barbra Streisand album, containing the usual mixture of recent songs ("He Touched Me," "The Shadow of Your Smile," "No More Songs for Me") and lesser-known songs by classic pop writers (Rodgers & Hart's "Quiet Night" and "Where's That Rainbow?"), filled out by full-length versions of songs from the medley ("Second Hand Rose," a song associated with Fanny Brice that became Streisand's second Top 40 hit, and "I Got Plenty O' Nothin'" from Porgy and Bess). The medley lacks the TV show's visual complement of Streisand cavorting in a department store, but the arrangement and her performance still camp up songs like "Brother Can You Spare a Dime?" and "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" a dubious choice of interpretation.