Tick Tock Goes The Clock from the Boston Tryout of PP

[pljms]

Here's an extremely rare recording of 'Tick Tock Goes The Clock' followed by 'Turkey Lurkey Time' taken from one of the Boston Tryout shows of 'Promises, Promises' in December 1968. It's obviously an amateur recording and the quality isn't great but it's a fascinating listen all the same, especially given the fact that 'Tick Tock Goes The Clock' was dropped from the score by the time the show opened on Broadway a week or so later:

[Jim Dixon]

This is great, thanks for posting it. It's amazing what turns up over the decades. Those Hal Blaine-style "wall of sound" drums certainly come through the low-fidelity. I'm not enough of a Broadway historian to know if mid-60s shows before Promises, Promises had any of this kind of muscular drumming, but I do know this was supposed to be the first audience that ever heard a musical that used rock-concert style mixing consoles and sound reinforcement.

For anyone who wants to jog their memory about what the Bacharach demo recording sounded like, it's here:


And you can buy it on this CD:
https://www.discogs.com/release/9169396 ... Take-Vol-2

[Jim Dixon]

Completely coincidentally, today I found a somewhat under the radar 1987 recording of the show's "Whoever You Are, I Love You" by cabaret singer Marlene VerPlanck. It won't blow anybody's mind, but if you can't get enough of Promises, Promises, maybe it will interest you:



EDIT: I called it "under the radar" because it escaped notice from Serene Dominic in his "Song by Song" book, and I think it's not listed in the discographies on this site. But it might be known to the folks in this forum. Dominic did catch Bobby Short's 1969 recording, also in the caberet style of course. That one isn't in the site discography either.

[pljms]

Jim, the demo of 'Tick Tock Goes The Clock' from June 1968 featuring the singers Rose Marie Jun and Leslie Miller with Burt at the piano and some slightly dodgy backing vocals is found on the album 'Broadway First Take vol.2'.


The album 'Lost In Boston' was recorded in 1994, hence the superior production values, and the version of 'Tick Tock Goes The Clock' it contained and that you posted above was arranged by Alex Rybeck, produced by Bruce Kimmel and the three singers were Lisa Mayer, Judy Malloy and Debbie Pavelka. I have both albums on CD.