The Barbra Streisand Album is the debut album by Barbra Streisand, released February 25, 1963, on Columbia Records, catalogue CL 2007 in mono and CS 8807 in stereo. It peaked at number 8 on the Billboard Top LPs, and has been certified a gold album by the RIAA. By 1966, the album had sold over one million copies worldwide. The album nominated for five Grammys on 1963 Grammy Awards which Album of the Year and Best Female Vocal Performance got. In 2006, the album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame Award. Background Columbia label president Goddard Lieberson initially resisted signing Streisand to a contract, finding her style too close to the cabaret singers he disliked and too far from the understated approach of Jo Stafford or Rosemary Clooney, who recorded for the label in the 1950s. Lieberson relented and agreed to sign her. Nearly three decades later Streisand said: The most important thing about that first contract – actually, the thing we held out for – was a unique clause giving me the right to choose my own material. It was the only thing I really cared about. I still received lots of pressure from the label to include some pop hits on my first album, but I held out for the songs that really meant something to me. Streisand exercised her creative control and chose the straightforward album title, rejecting Columbia's choice of Sweet and Saucy Streisand. Streisand said, "'What is the truth of it? It's the Barbra Streisand album.' If you saw me on TV, you could just go [to the record shop] and ask for the Barbra Streisand album. It's common sense." Despite Lieberson's initial reservations, Streisand went on to become one of Columbia's most enduring artists. The album was originally conceived as a live recording, since Streisand had made a name for herself performing at New York City nightclubs such as the Bon Soir and the Blue Angel. Her producer Mike Berniker brought a crew to the Bon Soir to record Streisand accompanied by the nightclub's house musicians and her pianist, Peter Daniels. The live recordings were shelved in favor of studio recordings, although the photograph for the album cover was taken during the Bon Soir session. Some material from the Bon Soir sets would later appear on Streisand's Just for the Record... retrospective box set in 1991; and, coinciding with the sixtieth anniversary