Will Barbra Streisand Win Her First Grammy in 39 Years for ‘The Secret of Life: Partners, Volume Two’?

Barbra Streisand fans woke up to wonderful news Wednesday morning (April 29): The diva of all divas is releasing a new studio album, The Secret of Life: Partners, Volume Two, on her longtime label Columbia Records on June 27. To say the album is star-studded is an understatement. Her duet partners on the 10 tracks include Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, Mariah Carey and Ariana Grande, James Taylor and Sting.

The album appears to be an instant front-runner to win the Grammy for best traditional pop vocal album. If it does score a W, it will be Streisand’s first Grammy win in 39 years, since she won best pop vocal performance, female for The Broadway Album in 1987. That would be an extraordinarily long gap between Grammys for an artist of Streisand’s stature, but she has endured it without complaint.

Streisand has gone so long without a Grammy win that she has never won for best traditional pop vocal album. The category was introduced at the 1991 ceremony. She has been nominated in that category 13 times, second only to Tony Bennett, who was nominated 17 times.

Streisand won her first two Grammys in 1964, so a win early next year would give her a 62-year span of Grammys. That would set a new record for the longest span of Grammy wins (in any category). Bennett’s wins spanned 59 years, from 1963 to 2022, when he won best traditional pop vocal album for Love for Sale, his collab with Lady Gaga.

The roster of guest stars on the new album includes three past winners in the category: McCartney, who won in 2013 for Kisses on the Bottom; Taylor, who won in 2021 for American Standard and Laufey, who won in 2024 for Bewitched.

Three other guest stars on the album have been nominated in that category, though they haven’t won yet. Dylan and Josh Groban have each been nominated three times. Seal has been nominated once.

Before this long Grammy drought, Streisand was a frequent Grammy winner. In 1964, at age 22, she won album of the year for her debut album, The Barbra Streisand Album. She was the youngest winner in that category until 1996, when Alanis Morissette won at age 21 for Jagged Little Pill. The record is currently held by Billie Eilish, who was just 18 in 2020 when she won for When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?

Streisand has received six album of the year nominations, which was the record for a female artist until Taylor Swift landed her seventh nod late last year.

Streisand won the Grammy Award for best female pop vocal performance three years running (1964-66), matching Ella Fitzgerald’s threepeat from 1959 to 1961. No one else has ever won three years in a row in that category or its gender-neutral successor category, best pop solo performance.

The new album includes “One Heart, One Voice,” a collab with Carey and Grande. The collab features three of the greatest singers of their respective generations: Streisand, 83; Carey, 56; and Grande, 31. In a way, it echoes a three-way collab on The Judy Garland Show in October 1963, when Streisand, then just 22, teamed with Judy Garland, then 41, and Ethel Merman, then 55, to sing Irving Berlin’s “There’s No Business Like Show Business.”

Groban is the only guest on The Secret of Life: Partners, Volume Two who was also featured on Partners. The two stars team to sing “Where Do I Go From You?” on the new album. They sang “Somewhere” from West Side Story on Partners.

The new album includes a collab with country star Tim McGraw. Partners, likewise, included a collab with a country star — Blake Shelton. Streisand teamed with country great Vince Gill in 1999 to record “If You Ever Leave Me” for her album A Love Like Ours.

The new album’s Grammy pedigree is also shown by the opening track, “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.” Roberta Flack’s original version won record of the year in 1973. The song, written in 1957 by Ewan MacColl, also won song of the year.

In titling this album The Secret of Life: Partners, Volume Two, Columbia is glossing over Encore: Movie Partners Sing Broadway, which was Streisand’s follow-up to Partners. Like its predecessor, it reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and received a Grammy nod for best traditional pop vocal album.

Will Streisand’s long Grammy draught end early next year? Place your bets.