Columbia Records released The Barbra Streisand Album late-February 1963 and had The Second Barbra Streisand Album out six months later, by September 1963. As the second album was released, the first album had sold over 100,000 units and been on the Top 10 popular albums lists.
“It's a wild kind of thing," Streisand told Leonard Feather about her success on records. “lt proves my point that anything that’s truly real, musically genuine, is commercial. Hip people dig it, but the people in Arkansas dig it too, because the songs are beautiful. And I can get additional groups of people interested by doing unexpected pieces of material, like ‘Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf’—which I did just because it's the last kind of song you'd expect to hear in the sophisticated settings where I work. And ‘Happy Days Are Here Again’ goes into another market, too.”
The Second Barbra Streisand Album contained more songs from Barbra’s nightclub act that she was performing around the country. “Most of the material was songs we had been doing for two and a half years,” her accompanist Peter Daniels said. “It was a big compliment to me when Peter [Matz] took our arrangements and expanded them for an orchestra. The collaboration was incredible.”
“[Columbia] gave us a little more money,” Peter Matz added, “so I had a more luscious orchestra to arrange for. But in terms of studio time they continued to short her.”
Larry Verdugo, in the 1979 fan magazine, Barbra, explained Matz’s importance to Streisand during these early days. “The contribution that the arrangements of Peter Matz made to the effectiveness of Streisand’s first recordings is important and should be noted. Matz understood exactly what Barbra wanted to do with these songs: her desire to tell stories, create specific moods, and most importantly, portray characters. His arrangements, therefore, emerge as models of support.”
Columbia's Mike Berniker produced the recording sessions, with Peter Matz contributing the arrangements and conducting the small orchestra.
