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Patti Smith
TIM Festival, Rio de Janeiro, October 28, 2006
Background information
Birth name	Patricia Lee Smith
Also known as	Patti Smith Group
Born	December 30, 1946 (1946-12-30) (age 60) Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Origin	New York City, New York, U.S.
Genre(s)	Punk, alternative rock
Occupation(s)	Singer-songwriter, poet, journalist
Instrument(s)	Vocals, guitar, clarinet
Years active	1974–present
Label(s)	Arista (1975–2002) Columbia (2002–present)
Associated acts	Tom Verlaine
Website	PattiSmith.net

Patti Smith (born Patricia Lee Smith on December 30, 1946) is an American singer-songwriter, and poet.

She was influential in the birth of the punk movement with her 1975 debut album Horses. Called "Punk's Poet Laureate"^[1] and "Godmother of Punk"^[2] she integrated the Beat poetry performance style with garage-band Rock and Roll. Her allusions introduced 19th-century French poetry to American teens, while her androgynous public persona and unladylike language defied the disco era.

Smith is perhaps most widely known for the song Because the Night, which was co-written with Bruce Springsteen. Smith's commercial success has been limited in that she has had just three Top 20 singles (one each on the Billboard Hot 100, Modern Rock and Mainstream Rock charts). Rolling Stone magazine counted her #47 in its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time^[3]. On March 12, 2007, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame^[4]. She has also been nominated for two Grammy Awards.^[5]

Contents 1 Beginnings 2 Early career 3 Retreat 4 Re-emergence 5 Political engagement 6 In popular culture 7 Band 8 Discography 9 Bibliography 10 References 11 External links

Smith was born in Chicago, Illinois, and raised in Woodbury, New Jersey[1]. The family was not wealthy and Smith went to work in a factory—an experience she found excruciating.^{[citation needed]} Smith graduated from Deptford Township High School in 1964.^[6]

In 1967 she left New Jersey for good, moved to New York City and met photographer Robert Mapplethorpe while working at a book store. Mapplethorpe's photographs of her became the covers for the Patti Smith Group LPs, and they remained friends until Mapplethorpe's death in 1989. In 1969 she went to Paris with her sister and started busking and doing performance art. When Smith returned to New York City, she lived in the Chelsea Hotel with Mapplethorpe; they frequented the fashionable Max's Kansas City and CBGB nightclubs.

In 1969 Smith appeared with Wayne County in Jackie Curtis's play Femme Fatale. As a member of the St. Mark's Poetry Project, she spent the early '70s painting, writing, and performing. In 1971 she performed—for one night only—in Sam Shepard's Cowboy Mouth. (The published play's notes call for "a man who looks like a coyote and a woman who looks like a crow".) She collaborated with Allen Lanier of Blue Öyster Cult, who recorded several of the songs to which Smith had contributed, including "Debbie Denise" (after her poem "In Remembrance of Debbie Denise"), "Career of Evil", "Fire of Unknown Origin", "The Revenge of Vera Gemini", and "Shooting Shark". During these years, Smith also wrote rock journalism, some of which was published in Creem magazine.

By 1974, however, Patti Smith was performing rock music herself, initially with guitarist and rock archivist Lenny Kaye, and later with a full band comprising Kaye, Ivan Kral (guitar), Jay Dee Daugherty (drums) and Richard Sohl (piano). Financed by Robert Mapplethorpe, the band recorded a first single, "Hey Joe/Piss Factory", in 1974. The A-side was a version of the rock standard with the addition of a spoken-word piece about fugitive heiress Patty Hearst ("Patty Hearst, you're standing there in front of the Symbionese Liberation Army flag with your legs spread, I was wondering were you gettin' it every night from a black revolutionary man and his women..."). The B-side describes the helpless anger Smith had felt while working on a factory assembly line and the salvation she discovered in the form of a shoplifted book, the 19th-century French poet Arthur Rimbaud's Illuminations.

The Patti Smith Group was signed by Clive Davis of Arista Records, and 1975 saw the release of Smith's first album Horses, produced by John Cale, formerly of The Velvet Underground, amidst some tension. The album was recorded and mixed by Bernie Kirsh. The record fused rock and roll, proto-punk rock and spoken poetry and is widely considered one of rock's greatest debuts. The album begins with a cover of Van Morrison's "Gloria", and Smith's opening words are some of the most famous in rock: "Jesus died for somebody's sins ... but not mine." The austere cover photograph by Robert Mapplethorpe has become one of rock's classic images.

As the Patti Smith Group toured the United States and Europe, punk's popularity grew. The rawer sound of the group's second album, Radio Ethiopia, reflected this. Considerably less accessible than Horses, Radio Ethiopia received poor reviews. However, several of its songs, notably "Pissing in a River", "Pumping (My Heart)" and "Ain't It Strange", have stood the test of time, and Smith still performs them regularly in concert.

While touring in support of the record, Smith accidentally danced off a high stage in Tampa, Florida, falling 15 feet into a concrete orchestra pit and breaking several neck vertebrae. The injury required a period of rest and an intensive round of physical therapy, during which time she was able to reassess, re-energize and reorganize her life, a luxury that had been denied her in her swift rise to fame.

The Patti Smith Group produced two further albums before the end of the 1970s. Easter (1978) was her most commercially successful record, containing the hit single "Because the Night"—co-written with Bruce Springsteen—which rose to #13 on the Billboard Hot 100. July 27, 1978 Patti Smith appear on the front of the Rolling Stone.^[7] Wave was less successful, although "Frederick" and "Dancing Barefoot" both received commercial airplay.

Before the release of Wave, Smith, now separated from long-time partner Allen Lanier, met Fred "Sonic" Smith, former guitar player for legendary Detroit rock band the MC5, who adored poetry as much as she did. (Wave's "Dancing Barefoot" and "Frederick" were both dedicated to him.) The running joke at the time was that she only married Fred because she wouldn't have to change her name. Patti and Fred had a son, Jackson, and later a daughter, Jesse. Through most of the 1980s Patti was in semi-retirement from music, living with her family north of Detroit in St. Clair Shores. In 1988 she released the critically well-received album Dream of Life.

In 1994 Fred "Sonic" Smith died. Shortly afterward, Patti faced the unexpected death of her beloved brother Todd. When her son Jackson turned 21, Smith decided to move back to New York. Her son had a band called Back In Spades.

After the deaths of her husband and brother, her friends Michael Stipe of R.E.M. and Allen Ginsberg (whom she had known since her early years in New York) urged her to go back out on the road. She toured briefly with Bob Dylan in December 1995 (chronicled in a book of photographs by Stipe). The next year, she worked with her long-time colleagues to record the haunting Gone Again, featuring, "About a Boy", a tribute to Kurt Cobain. Smith was a great fan of Cobain's, but was more angered than saddened by his suicide. She was quoted in Rolling Stone: "When you watch someone you care for fight so hard to hold onto their life, then see another person just throw their life away, I guess I had less patience for that."^[8]

On October 15, 2006, Patti Smith performed at CBGB, with 3½-hour tour de force to close out Manhattan's legendary live-music venue. She took the stage at 9:30 PM (EDT) and closed for the night (and forever for the venue) at a few minutes after 1:00, after performing a medley of "Horses" and "Gloria" and finally her song "Elegie", while reading a list of punk rock musicians and advocates who had died in the previous years.^[9]

Smith was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame March 12, 2007. Zach de la Rocha of Rage Against the Machine gave Smith's induction speech. Smith dedicated her award to the memory of her late husband, Fred. Smith gave a performance of the Rolling Stones classic "Gimme Shelter", a song she termed a great anti-war song. As the closing number of 2007 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction evening, Smith's "People Have the Power" was used for the big celebrity jam that always ends the program. Among those playing or singing were Eddie Vedder, Stephen Stills, and Keith Richards. All the other inductees to the Hall that night joined: Sammy Hagar and Mike Anthony of Van Halen, the Ronettes, Grandmaster Flash and Furious Five and R.E.M. including Bill Berry on drums.^[10]

Smith has been an active supporter of the Green Party, which nominated Ralph Nader in the 2000 presidential campaign. She led the crowd singing "People Have the Power" at the campaign's rallies, and also performed at several of Nader's subsequent "Democracy Rising" events. When an in-concert reference to Ralph Nader was answered with booing (some blame the Greens for the Democratic Party losing the 2000 election), Smith said, "They booed Thomas Paine too."^{[citation needed]} Smith nominally supported Democratic candidate John Kerry in the 2004 election. She returned to writing and recording. Bruce Springsteen continued performing her "People Have the Power" at campaign events. In the winter of 2004/2005, Smith toured again with Nader in a series of rallies to end the 2003 invasion of Iraq and call for the impeachment of President George W. Bush.

Smith premiered two new protest songs in London in September 2006. Louise Jury, writing in The Independent, characterized them as "an emotional indictment of American and Israeli foreign policy". One song ("Qana") was about the Israeli airstrike on the Lebanese village of Qana, the other ("Without Chains") about the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay. Jury's article quotes Smith as saying:

“

I wrote both these songs directly in response to events that I felt outraged about. These are injustices against children and the young men and women who are being incarcerated. I'm an American, I pay taxes in my name and they are giving millions and millions of dollars to a country such as Israel and cluster bombs and defense technology and those bombs were dropped on common citizens in Qana. It's terrible. It's a human rights violation.[11]

”

"Without Chains" is about Murat Kurnaz, a Turkish citizen who was born and raised in Germany, held at Guantanamo for four years. Jury quotes Smith:

“

He is the same age as my son, Jackson. When I read the story, I realised how I would feel as a mother if my son had been taken away at the age of 20, put into chains, without any hope of leaving, without any direct charge."[12]

”

In the 2004 film adaptation of In My Father's Den, director Brad McGann replaces the author's use of Dostoevsky novels as motifs of rebellion and unfulfilled dreams with Patti Smith's album Horses. The songs "Land" and "Free Money" are thematic on the soundtrack.^[13]

In 1978 Gilda Radner of Saturday Night Live spoofed Patti Smith with a character named "Candy Slice", performing "If You Look Close" and "Gimme Mick". Both songs appear on Radner's 1980 album Live From New York. The real Patti Smith Group was on SNL two years earlier, playing "Gloria" and a cover of The Who's "My Generation".

Punk Band Crass slated Patti in their song "Punk Is Dead". The song contains the lyric "Patti Smith, you're napalm, you write with your hand, but its Rimbaud's arm".

Dance-punk band The Rapture mentions Patti Smith in their song "Whoo Alright Yeah Uh-huh". They sing "But is it lyrical genius or crap rock poetry?/I say the lineage runs Morrison, Patti Smith, then me".

• Lenny Kaye — guitar (1974-present)
• Richard Sohl — keyboards (1974-1988)
• Ivan Kral — bass (1975-1979)
• Jay Dee Daugherty — drums (1975-present)
• Bruce Brody — keyboards (1978)
• Tony Shanahan — bass, keyboards (1996-present)
• Oliver Ray — guitar (1996-2004)

Main article: Patti Smith discography

Studio albums

• Horses (1975)
• Radio Ethiopia (1976)
• Easter (1978)
• Wave (1979)
• Dream of Life (1988)
• Gone Again (1996)
• Peace and Noise (1997)
• Gung Ho (2000)
• Trampin' (2004)

• Seventh Heaven (1972)
• A Useless Death (1972)
• kodak (1972)
• Early morning dream (1972)
• Witt (1973)
• Ha! Ha! Houdini! (1977)
• Gallerie Veith Turske (1977)
• Babel (1978)
• Woolgathering (1992)
• Early Work: 1970 - 1979 (1994)
• The Coral Sea (1996)
• Complete: Lyrics, Reflections and Notes for the Future (1998)
• Wild Leaves (1999)
• Strange Messenger: The Work of Patti Smith (2003)
• Auguries of Innocence: Poems (2005)

• Official web site
• Patti Smith at MySpace
• Patti Smith at All Music Guide
• Patti Smith at the Internet Movie Database

• the Patti Smith logbook
• a patti smith website
• a patti smith babelogue
• LiveJournal community

Inductees of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
2007
Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five | R.E.M. | The Ronettes | Patti Smith | Van Halen

v • d • e Patti Smith
Studio albums	Horses (1975) · Radio Ethiopia (1976) · Easter (1978) · Wave (1979) · Dream of Life (1988) · Gone Again (1996) · Peace and Noise (1997) · Gung Ho (2000) · Trampin' (2004)
Related articles	Discography