An American Prayer [is] the best recitative sluice of American literature on LP since Call Me Burroughs, and hell, even Burroughs never had the sheer nerve to lead with "All join now and lament the death of my cock." In a way Jim was really the end of the Masculine Mystique as celebrated through American culture up to and through rock 'n' roll, because unlike clowns of John Kay ilk, Jim was always in on the joke, in fact ballooned it to full erectile expanse before bending to gulp dirty bathwater in who is to say was not one last attempt at autofellatio? You could hear how wise he was to both the humor in traditional sex roles and their imminent rupture—unlike La Smith or indeed any of his progeny, he was a master of the sly inflectional turn, so that his every utterance no matter how...