''Poems, Prayers & Promises'' is the fourth studio album by American singer-songwriter

John Denver Henry John Deutschendorf Jr. (December 31, 1943 – October 12, 1997), known professionally as John Denver, was an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, actor, activist, and humanitarian whose greatest commercial success was as a solo singe ...

, released on April 6, 1971 through

RCA Records RCA Records is an American record label currently owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America. It is one of Sony Music's four flagship labels, alongside RCA's former long-time rival Columbia Records; also A ...

. The album was recorded in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, and produced by

Milton Okun Milton may refer to: Names * Milton (surname), a surname (and list of people with that surname) ** John Milton (1608–1674), English poet * Milton (given name) ** Milton Friedman (1912–2006), Nobel laureate in Economics, author of '' Free t ...

and Susan Ruskin. ''Poems, Prayers & Promises'' was Denver's commercial breakthrough, and contained several of his most popular songs, such as "Poems, Prayers, and Promises", " My Sweet Lady", "I Guess He'd Rather Be in Colorado", " Sunshine on My Shoulders", and " Take Me Home, Country Roads", which would become one of Denver's

signature song A signature (; from la, signare, "to sign") is a Handwriting, handwritten (and often Stylization, stylized) depiction of someone's name, nickname, or even a simple "X" or other mark that a person writes on documents as a proof of identity and ...

s. "The Box", which concludes the album, is a poem by

Kendrew Lascelles Kendrew Lascelles (pronounced ''Lassels''; 20 September 1935 – 1 March 2022) was an English-born actor, performer and writer from South Africa. His works are known for raising the profile of issues of major social conscience, particularly Apa ...

illustrating the futility of war. The album peaked at number 15 on the ''Billboard'' 200.

Track listing

Personnel

* John Denver – guitars, vocals

Musicians

Gary Chester Gary Chester (born Cesario Gurciullo; October 27, 1924 – August 17, 1987) was an American studio drummer, author, and teacher. Beginning in the 1960s, he played on hundreds of records for bands such as The Coasters, The Monkees, and The Lovin ...

– drums * Bill Danoff – vocals, guitar * Dick Kniss – double bass * Taffy Nivert – vocals * Frank Owens – piano * Mike Taylor – acoustic guitar *

Eric Weissberg Eric Weissberg (August 16, 1939 – March 22, 2020) was an American singer, banjo player, and multi-instrumentalist, whose most commercially successful recording was his banjo solo in "Dueling Banjos," featured as the theme of the film ''Deliver ...

– banjo, steel guitars

Production

* Ray Hall – recording engineer * Jean Kaplow – production assistant * Milton Okun – producer * Don Wardell – executive producer

Charts

References

John Denver albums 1971 albums Albums produced by Milt Okun RCA Records albums {{1970s-folk-album-stub