Eugene McCarthy Benefit
Carnegie Hall
New York
June 26, 1968
(Left to right: Dustin Hoffman, Leonard Bernstein, Barbra Streisand, Eugene McCarthy, Paul O'Dwyer [ex-city official in NYC], and Mike Nichols.)
After meeting Senator Eugene McCarthy at a dinner at Paul Newman's home in May, Streisand supported his Presidential campaign by singing for him at a fundraiser in June.
Columnist Joyce Haber wrote:
The concert ... raised a whopping $900,000 for Sen. Eugene McCarthy. The participants: Walter Matthau emceed, Negro baritone Gilbert Price sang, Dustin Hoffman read the senator's poetry, Mike Nichols and Neil Simon fooled around ... and Leonard Bernstein conducted for Barbra Streisand, who sang a new one by Jim Webb called “The Tin Soldiers” ... [note: “Little Tin Soldier.”]
Streisand sang four songs that evening.
“So Pretty” was her opener. A Vietnam protest song written from the point-of-view of a child, the song had lyrics by Comden & Green and music by Leonard Bernstein. (The song was actually written for another fundraiser, Broadway For Peace, and sung by Streisand five months earlier.)
Bernstein accompanied Streisand on piano on stage at Carnegie Hall.
Next Barbra sang “What About Today,” “Little Tin Soldier,” and “I'd Rather Be Blue.”
Barbra Archives has compiled excerpts from a bootleg of this performance below. Click the play button to listen:
End.
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