my I don't think mother knew that I could sing....

Barbra Streisand's son Jason Gould tells NAOMI CLARKE, about his musical upbringing and finding his own voice

MANY have been blessed with musical DNA, but to have been on the West End stage before you were born surely guarantees you're going to have rhythm running through your veins.

Shortly after the hit musical Funny Girl opened at the Prince of Wales Theatre in London in 1966, the show's lead star, Barbra Streisand, announced she was pregnant with her first child - Jason Gould.

After her acclaimed run, Barbra gave birth that year in New York.

Jason grew up immersed in the arts, as his mother continued to record dozens of albums and star in a plethora of film and TV projects, while his father, actor Elliott Gould, appeared in everything from 1970s dark comedy M*A*S*H to classic US sitcom Friends.

Jason followed in their footsteps, with his first role alongside his mother in the 1972 film Up The Sandbox, before attending acting school.

After years on the silver screen, in films including Say Anything, Listen To Me and The Prince of Tides, he only began branching out into music later in life.

"I never thought I would sing in front of anybody up until I was probably in my early 40s," Jason, 57, tells me over a Zoom call from Los Angeles. "I always felt this impulse to make music, but I didn't really know how to do it.

"So I started to study songwriting. I wanted to also try singing songs I hadn't written, and I came across How Deep Is The Ocean. It was the first song I ever recorded that I didn't write.