Allyson Briggs - Promises, Prayers And Raindrops

[pljms]

Broadway performer Allyson Briggs has an album of Bacharach songs released this week entitled 'Promises, Prayers And Raindrops', and probably the most eye-catching choices among the tracks are two very obscure songs associated with Peggy Lee, 'Uninvited Dream' and 'My Rock And Foundation', and I believe this is the first time someone other than Ms Lee has recorded either of them. The inclusion of 'Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head' is of course much more predictable, but this is the first time I've heard it sung in Yiddish and it features Allyson Briggs with Julie Benko.

[Blair N. Cummings]

Of all obscurities to relieve the tedium of yet another album of war-horses that no one could possibly need to hear again, why the two cited above? The first was composed in the early fifties before Burt had even developed his style; the second - from twenty years later - sounds like something dashed off on his way out the door for lunch.
Kudos for the thought of trying something different, but I can`t imagine the audience for this combination of the over-exposed and the banal.

[pljms]

According to Song By Song by Serene Dominic 'Uninvited Dream' was published in 1956 and recorded and released by Peggy Lee the following year. I see that the lyricist is Sammy Gallop whose most famous song is probably 'Elmer's Tune', a hit for Glenn Miller in the early 1940s. I look forward to hearing the new version of 'Uninvited Dream' by Allyson Briggs as I do the rest of the album.

[Jim Dixon]

...lyricist is Sammy Gallop whose most famous song is probably 'Elmer's Tune', a hit for Glenn Miller in the early 1940s.

Gallop also co-wrote "Somewhere Along the Way" 10 years after "Elmer's Tune", and both of them went to 68 on the charts. His "Autumn Serenade" lives on because it closes "John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman", which any self-respecting fan of the American Songbook has to have in their collection.

A track list for the Briggs record is here.

Even knowing that Burt wrote "My Rock and Salvation" for Peggy Lee, I wonder if that song could have worked better with a singer like BJ Thomas, or maybe Dionne at her "frothy-est", with Burt shaping the vocal phrasing and providing the arrangement. I love Peggy Lee, but I think the song needs the full Bacharach treatment to approach being memorable.

[Sara D]

'My Rock And Foundation' may well be banal by Bacharach's standards but I'm not sure how unmemorable it is because ever since listening again to Peggy Lee's recording of the song for the first time in years last week I can't get the damn thing out of my head!

[pljms]

Prepare to have the tune stuck in your head for at least another week, Sara, because here's the new version of 'My Rock And Foundation' by Allyson Briggs. For me the most adhesive part of the song is the refrain, "We all build castles in the air and when they tumble apart.....".

[pljms]

'Uninvited Dream' may not contain a melodic line or a chord sequence that is reminiscent of Bacharach in his heyday but it's still a nicely crafted song which benefits from the jazzy arrangement and the more leisurely tempo given it on the new album. Allyson Briggs also sings it beautifully.