Harold Rome's musical revue Pins and Needles, staged by the Cultural Division of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union in 1937, was an unusual mixture of Broadway show music style and '30s union content. It also had a union cast of workers who performed the show on weekends for four years in the late Depression.
Rome was back on Broadway with I Can Get It for You Wholesale 25 years later, which inspired Columbia Records to make the first recording of his first show, using a simple backup of piano, guitar, bass, and drums.
Rome sang some of the songs himself, and he brought along a young
Barbra Streisand, who was stopping the show as a featured performer in Wholesale.
Streisand, heard on six of the 15 cuts, was given the comic material for the most part, her "Nobody Makes a Pass at Me" playing up the same angle as her Wholesale feature, "Miss Marmelstein." The songs did not give
Streisand much of a chance to display her vocal gifts, especially because the romantic material was handled by Rose Marie Jun and
Jack Carroll.
Carroll sang the show's one hit, "Sunday in the Park," and Jun sang its best-written effort, "Chain Store Daisy." The real star was
Rome, and
Streisand seemed headed for typecasting. ~ William Ruhlmann