Everything about Patti Smith totally explained
Patti Smith (born
Patricia Lee Smith on
December 30,
1946) is an
American singer-songwriter and
poet. She was influential in the birth of
punk rock with her
1975 debut album
Horses. Called "Godmother of Punk" she integrated the beat
poetry performance style with
garage rock. Her allusions introduced American teens to 19th century French poetry, while her "unladylike" language defied the disco era. Smith is most widely known for the song "
Because the Night", which was co-written with
Bruce Springsteen and reached number 13 on
Billboard Hot 100 chart. In 2005 Patti Smith was named a Commander of the
Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by French Minister of Culture, and in 2007 she was inducted into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
History
Early years
Smith was born in
Chicago. Her mother, Beverly, was a jazz singer, and father, Grant, worked at the
Honeywell plant. She spent her entire childhood in
Woodbury, New Jersey. Raised the daughter of a
Jehovah's Witness mother, she claims she'd a strong religious education and a very good
Bible education, but left organized religion as a teenager because she felt it was too confining and much later wrote the opening line of her cover version of
Them's "
Gloria" in response to this experience. Smith graduated from
Deptford Township High School in 1964. The family wasn't wealthy and Smith went to work in a factory.
1967–1973: New York
In 1967 she left Glassboro State Teachers College (now
Rowan University) and moved to
New York City. She met photographer
Robert Mapplethorpe there while working at a book store with friend, poet Janet Hamill. 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. (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.
1974–1979: Patti Smith Group
By 1974 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 on
bass,
Jay Dee Daugherty on
drums and Richard Sohl, on
piano. Ivan Kral was a refugee from
Czechoslovakia, fleeing in 1968 after the fall of
Alexander Dubček. 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. As 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 have stood the test of time, and Smith still performs them regularly in concert. On
January 23,
1977, while touring in support of the record, Smith accidentally danced off a high stage in
Tampa, Florida and fell 15 feet into a concrete
orchestra pit, 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. Patti Smith Group produced two further albums before the end of the 1970s.
Easter (1978) was her most commercially successful record, containing single "
Because the Night" co-written with
Bruce Springsteen.
Wave (1979) was less successful, although songs "
Frederick" and "
Dancing Barefoot" both received commercial airplay.
1980–1995: Retreat
Before the release of
Wave, Smith, now separated from long-time partner Allen Lanier, met Fred Sonic Smith, former guitar player for Detroit rock band MC5 and his own Sonic's Rendezvous Band, 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, Michigan. On June
1988 she released album
Dream of Life, which included song "
People Have the Power". Fred Smith died on
November 4,
1994. Shortly afterward, Patti faced the unexpected death of her brother Todd After release of
Gone Again, Patti Smith has recorded two new albums:
Peace and Noise in
1997 (with the single "
1959", about the
invasion of Tibet) and
Gung Ho in
2000 (with songs about
Ho Chi Minh and Smith's late father). A box set of her work up to that time,
The Patti Smith Masters, came out in
1996, and
2002 saw the release of
Land (1975–2002), a two-CD compilation that includes a memorable cover of
Prince's "
When Doves Cry". Smith's
solo art exhibition,
Strange Messenger was hosted at
The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh on
September 28,
2002.
2004–present
On
April 27,
2004 Patti Smith released
Trampin' which included several songs about motherhood, partly in tribute to Smith's mother who died two years before. Smith curated the
Meltdown festival in
London on
June 25,
2005, the penultimate event being the first live performance of
Horses in its entirety. Guitarist
Tom Verlaine took Oliver Ray's place. This live performance was released later in the year as
Horses/Horses. In August 2005 Smith gave a literary lecture about the poems of Arthur Rimbaud and
William Blake. On
July 10,
2005, Smith was named a Commander of the
Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the
French Ministry of Culture. Smith was inducted into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame March 12,
2007. From
March 28 to
June 22,
2008 the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain in Paris is hosting a major exhibition of the visual work of Patti Smith,
Land 250, drawn from pieces created between 1967 and 2007. At the 2008 Rowan Commencement ceremony, Smith received an honorary doctorate degree for her contributions to popular culture. Smith is the subject of a 2008 documentary film, .
Activism
Smith has been an active supporter of the
Green Party (United States), which nominated
Ralph Nader in the
United States presidential elections. 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. Smith nominally supported
Democratic candidate
John Kerry in the
2004 election.
Bruce Springsteen continued performing her "People Have the Power" at
Vote for Change campaign events. In the winter of 2004/2005, Smith toured again with Nader in a series of
rallies against the Iraq War and
call for the impeachment of George W. Bush. Louise Jury, writing in
The Independent, characterized them as "an emotional indictment of American and Israeli foreign policy". Song "Qana" (available at
official website
) was about the Israeli airstrike on the
Lebanese village of
Qana. "Without Chains" (available at
official website) is about
Murat Kurnaz, a Turkish citizen who was born and raised in Germany, held at
Guantanamo Bay detainment camp for four years. Jury's article quotes Smith as saying:
Influence
Patti Smith has been a great source of inspiration for
Michael Stipe of
R.E.M. Listening to her album
Horses when he was 15 made a huge impact on him. He said later: "I decided then that I was going to start a band." In 1998, Stipe published a collection of photos called
Two Times Intro: On the Road with Patti Smith. Stipe sings backing vocals on Smith's songs "Last Call" and "Glitter in Their Eyes". Patti also sings background vocals on R.E.M.'s "E-Bow the Letter".
In 2004,
Shirley Manson of
Garbage told about Patti's influence on her at
Rolling Stone's issue "The Immortals: 100 Greatest Artists of All Time", in which Patti Smith was counted number 47.
The Smiths members
Morrissey and
Johnny Marr shared an appreciation for Patti's
Horses, and their song "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle" is a reworking of one of the album's tracks, "Kimberly". Later, Morrissey did a cover of "Redondo Beach", another song from the same album.
In 2004,
Sonic Youth released an album called
Hidros 3 (to Patti Smith).
U2 also cites Patti Smith as influence.
In 2005 Scottish singer-songwriter
KT Tunstall released the single "
Suddenly I See" as a tribute of sorts to Patti Smith. The lyrics describe Tunstall looking at Smith's picture in a magazine; admiring her fame and accomplishments and suddenly realizing what she wants to do with her life. The cover of Tunstall's debut album
Eye To The Telescope was also inspired by Smith, specifically the famous cover shot from her album
Horses, of which Tunstall said: "I aspired to what this image was about - which was a woman dressed in man's clothes with such mystery, but such confidence and attitude and character. I just thought, 'that's so what I want to be when I grow up'."
Canadian actress,
Ellen Page, frequently mentions Smith as one of her idols and has done various photo shoots replicating famous Smith photos. She has said that the only time she's been truly star-struck was when she met Smith backstage at a concert in Europe and she's a dog named Patti in homage to Smith. Because of Page's suggestions, Smith's work and name also factor prominently in two of Page's movies,
Juno and
The Tracey Fragments.
Band
| 1974 | |
| 1975–1979 | Lenny Kaye – guitar
Jay Dee Daugherty – drums
Richard Sohl – keyboards
Bruce Brody – keyboards (1978)
Ivan Kral – bass
|
| 1988 | Fred Sonic Smith – guitar
Jay Dee Daugherty – drums
Richard Sohl – keyboards
|
| 1996–present | Lenny Kaye – guitar
Jay Dee Daugherty – drums
Tony Shanahan – bass, keyboards
Oliver Ray – guitar (1996–2004)
|
Discography
Bibliography
Seventh Heaven (1972)
Witt (1973)
Babel (1978)
Woolgathering (1992)
Early Work (1994)
The Coral Sea (1996)
Patti Smith Complete (1998)
Strange Messenger (2003)
Auguries of Innocence (2005)Further Information
Get more info on 'Patti Smith'.
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