An American Prayer is the ninth and final studio album by the American rock band the Doors, released on November 17, 1978 by Elektra Records. Following the 1971 death of vocalist Jim Morrison and the band's breakup in 1973, the surviving members of the Doors reconvened to record music to accompany several of Morrison's spoken word recordings. It was the only album by the Doors to be nominated for a Grammy Award in the Spoken Word category.
Keyboardist Ray Manzarek perceived An American Prayer as being divided into five parts, with the first covering Morrison's childhood, the second covering his high school years, the third concerning "the young poet, stoned on a rooftop with acid dreams", the fourth covering his musical career and finally the fifth being a "final summation in a way, of the man's entire life and his philosophy." while the last recordings were made in Village Recorders, West Los Angeles. The first session included poems like "Bird of Prey", "Under Waterfall" and "Orange County", By January 1971, after the completion of these recordings, Morrison had developed some concepts for the album cover art, and was in correspondence with artist T. E. Breitenbach to design this cover in the form of a triptych. Prior to leaving for Paris in March 1971, Morrison had also approached composer Lalo Schifrin as a possible collaborator on the music to accompany the poetry, instead of the other members of the Doors.
In 1978, Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger and John Densmore reunited to record the music for An American Prayer. On November 19, 1978, in the Los Angeles Times, Ray Manzarek explained, "We did this album to show the side of Jim which has been underrated all these years." Morrison's friend Frank Lisciandro served as one of the co-producers of the album, while Pamela Courson's father "Corky" Courson was also involved in the record. According to the book Break on Through, when recording the music, the three Doors members decided to produce a different musical style from Morrison's original vision of orchestral music on the project. Other pieces of music and spoken word recorded by the Doors and Morrison were also used in the audio collage, such as dialogue from Morrison's film HWY: An American Pastoral, snippets from jam sessions, and featuring sections from "The WASP (Texas Radio and the Big Beat)"
Artwork
thumb|310x310px|Artist T. E. Breitenbach with [[The Jim Morrison Triptych that was supposed to be the cover art of An American Prayer.]]
After Morrison had done his recordings, he asked American artist T. E. Breitenbach to design the cover for the album.
After Morrison's death however, the album's producers were unaware of his intention to use the painting, and used for the front and back cover photos taken by Edmund Teske and Joel Brodsky respectively.
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| rev2Score = C
| rev3 = The Encyclopedia of Popular Music
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| rev4Score = C
| rev5 = The Great Rock Discography
| rev5Score = 4/10
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An American Prayer was released on November 17, 1978, as "a Jim Morrison Album" with "Music by the Doors". The album peaked at number 54 on the US charts.
Despite receiving a RIAA platinum certification in the US, An American Prayer received mixed reviews and still divides critics. When the album was originally released, longtime Doors' producer Paul A. Rothchild castigated it as a "RAPE of Jim Morrison." Rothchild claimed that he had heard all of the reels of master tapes from both the 1969 and the 1970 poetry sessions, and insisted that the three remaining Doors failed to realize Morrison's original intent for an audio presentation of the poetry. John Haeny (who recorded the original session tapes with Morrison in 1970) wrote in a 2013 essay: "I want people to understand that this album was made by those people who were closest to Jim, both personally and artistically. Everyone had the best intentions" and that, "I believe Jim would be pleased. Jim would have understood our motivation and appreciated our dedication and heartfelt handling of his work."
In his 1981 review, Robert Christgau rated An American Prayer "C" (which is about average on his scale). He praised the music accompaniment by the surviving members, but criticized Morrison as "a bad poet".
Track listing
Poetry, lyrics and stories are written and recited by Jim Morrison; the music is composed by Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger and John Densmore. Details are taken from the original 1978 US Elektra Records release.
Bonus tracks
Source:
Notes
- Morrison's vocals in "Bird of Prey" were later sampled for the 2000 Fatboy Slim song "Sunset (Bird of Prey)".
- Morrison's shout, "Wake up!" in "Awake" was sampled in the 1991 Orbital song "Choice".
- Morrison's vocals from "Angels and Sailors" appeared on Bad Company's track "Ladies of Spain".
Personnel
Per the 2018 reissue liner notes:
- Jerry Scheff – bass guitar on "Adagio"
- Reinol Andino – percussion
- Arthur Barrow – synthesizer programming on "The Movie"
Production
- John Haeny – production
- Frank Lisciandro – production,
- John Van Hamersveld, Ron Coro, Johnny Lee – art direction
- Paul Ferrara – engineering, inside front cover photography
- Edmund Teske – front cover photography
- Joel Brodsky – back cover photography
- Art Kane – inside back cover photography
Charts
Album
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders"
|-
!Chart (1979)
!Peak<br />position
|-
!scope="row"|Australian Albums (Kent Music Report)
| style="text-align:center;"|80
|-
!scope="row"|US Billboard 200
| style="text-align:center;"|54
|}
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders"
|-
!Chart (1995)
!Peak<br />position
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
!scope="row"|German Albums (Offizielle Deutsche Charts)
| style="text-align:center;"|79
|-
|-
|}
Singles
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! scope="col"| Year
! scope="col"| Single
! scope="col"| Chart
! scope="col"| Peak<br />position
|-
| 1995
| scope="row"| "The Ghost Song"
| Australian Singles Chart
| style="text-align:center;"|48
|-
| 1995
| scope="row"| "The Ghost Song"
| UK Singles Chart
| style="text-align:center;"|98
|}
Certifications
See also
- Outline of the Doors