Barbra Streisand pushed her voice to the limit recording audiobook for her memoir

Bang Showbiz on Jun 25, 2025

Published in Women

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Barbra Streisand's voice was "hoarse" after she recorded the audiobook for her memoir My Name Is Barbra.

The 83-year-old star admits that she put her vocals under extreme strain as she recorded the audio version of her 970-page-long autobiography shortly after working on her latest album The Secret of Life: Partners, Volume Two.

Barbra told People magazine: "All the wonderful people that I was going to sing with wanted to sing with me. And they were all so special and I hadn't sung in a very long time.

"I didn't know if I had a voice left because after I did that, Jesus, six weeks, six days a week, five hours a day of talking, speaking into a microphone for the book. So I was hoarse."

Streisand's latest record is released on Friday (27.06.25) - featuring duets with music titans including Sir Paul McCartney and Bob Dylan - and the legendary singer and actress has vowed to continue making music for as long as her voice permits.

The Woman in Love artist said: "As long as I have a voice, I love the privacy of recording.

"I love standing there in front of the mic with the music in my ears and singing, and there are more songs I want to sing. And I even have my original list of songs I wanted to sing."

Barbra duets with the jazz-pop star Laufey on the song Letter to My 13 Year Old Self and reflected on how she "instinctively" improvised during her musical performances at that age.

The Funny Girl actress explained: "The first time you're a teenager, you've moved ahead to another level. Believe in yourself, believe in your choices. Believe in what you hear, what you feel.

"I mean, I did it instinctively. You know what I mean? I don't know why I did it. And it's the first time I ever did an improvisation even. I was standing in front of the mic at 13 and what I rehearsed with the guys, the piano player, I did something else.

"And I thought, where did that come from? Where did improvisation? Where did I... I don't know. It came out and I liked it. I went, 'Oh, that's interesting.'"