Patricia Lee "Patti" Smith
(born December 30, 1946) is an American singer–songwriter, poet and visual artist who was a highly influential component of the New York City punk rock movement with her 1975 debut album Horses
. [1] Called the "Godmother of Punk", [2] she integrated the beat poetry performance style with three-chord rock. Smith's most widely known song is "Because the Night", which was co-written with Bruce Springsteen and reached number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1978. In 2005, Patti Smith was named a Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture, [3] and in 2007, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. [4]
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PATTI SMITH TICKETS
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Biography
Early years
Patti Smith was born in
Chicago on December 30, 1946. Her mother, Beverly, was a
jazz singer and her father, Grant, worked at the
Honeywell plant. She spent her entire childhood in
Deptford Township, New Jersey.
[5] [6] Raised the daughter of a
Jehovah's Witness mother, she claims she had 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 ("Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine") of her cover version of
Them's "
Gloria" in response to this experience.
[7] Smith graduated from
Deptford Township High School in 1964. The family was not well-off, and Smith went to work in a factory.
Patti Smith was voted "Class Clown" in her senior year.
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 a 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.
[8] 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
Hotel Chelsea with Mapplethorpe; they frequented the fashionable
Max's Kansas City and
CBGB nightclubs. Smith provided the spoken word soundtrack for
Sandy Daley's art film
Robert Having His Nipple Pierced
, starring Mapplethorpe. The same year 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
.
[9] (The published play's notes call for "a man who looks like a coyote and a woman who looks like a crow".)
Smith was briefly considered for lead singer position in the
Blue Öyster Cult, and contributed lyrics to several of their songs, including "Debbie Denise" (after her poem "In Remembrance of Debbie Denise"), "Career of Evil", "Fire of Unknown Origin", "The Revenge of Vera Gemini" (on which she sings duet vocals), and "Shooting Shark". During these years, Smith also wrote rock
journalism, some of which was published in
Rolling Stone
and
Creem
magazines.
[10],
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 Dubcek. 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...").
[11] 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
.
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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 amid some tension. The album fused
punk rock and spoken
poetry and begins with a cover of
Van Morrison's "Gloria", and Smith's opening words: "Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine." The austere cover photograph by Mapplethorpe has become one of rock's classic images.
[12] 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.
[13] 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.
[14] 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 the single "
Because the Night" co-written with
Bruce Springsteen.
Wave
(1979) was less successful, although the songs "
Frederick" and "
Dancing Barefoot" both received commercial airplay.
[15]
1980–1995: Marriage
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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. [16]) The running joke at the time was that she only married Fred because she would not have to change her name. [17] They had a son, Jackson (b. 1982), who would go on to marry The White Stripes drummer, Meg White in 2009, and a daughter, Jesse (b. 1987). Through most of the 1980s Patti Smith was in semi-retirement from music, living with her family north of Detroit in St. Clair Shores, Michigan. On June 1988, she released the album
Dream of Life'', which included the song "
People Have the Power". Fred Smith died on November 4, 1994. Shortly afterward, Patti faced the unexpected death of her brother Todd
and original keyboard player
Richard Sohl. When her son Jackson turned 14, Smith decided to move back to New York. After the impact of these deaths, 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).
1996–2003: Re-emergence
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In 1996, Smith worked with her long-time colleagues to record the haunting
Gone Again
, featuring "About a Boy", a tribute to
Kurt Cobain. Smith was a fan of Cobain, but was more angered than saddened by his
suicide. That same year she collaborated with Stipe on "
E-Bow the Letter," a song on R.E.M.'s
New Adventures in Hi-Fi
, which she has also performed live with the band.
[18] After release of
Gone Again
, Patti Smith had 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). Songs "1959" and "
Glitter in Their Eyes" were nominated for
Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance.
[19] 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.
[20]
2004–present
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On April 27, 2004 Patti Smith released
Trampin'
which included several songs about motherhood, partly in tribute to Smith's mother, who had 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.
[21] 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.
In addition to her influence on rock music, the Minister also noted Smith's appreciation of Arthur Rimbaud. On October 15, 2006, Patti Smith performed at the CBGB nightclub, with a 3½-hour
tour de force
to close out
Manhattan's music venue. She took the stage at 9:30 p.m. (EDT) and closed for the night (and forever for the venue) at a few minutes after 1:00 a.m., performing her song "Elegie", and finally reading a list of punk rock musicians and advocates who had died in the previous years.
[22]
Smith was inducted into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 12, 2007.
She dedicated her award to the memory of her late husband, Fred, and gave a performance of
The Rolling Stones staple "
Gimme Shelter." As the closing number of the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, Smith's "People Have the Power" was used for the big celebrity jam that always ends the program.
[23] From March 28 to June 22, 2008 the
Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain in Paris hosted a major exhibition of the visual work of Patti Smith,
Land 250
, drawn from pieces created between 1967 and 2007.
[24] 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,
Patti Smith: Dream of Life
.
[25] A live album by Patti Smith and
Kevin Shields,
The Coral Sea
was released in July 2008.
Activism
Smith has been a supporter of the
Green Party and backed
Ralph Nader in the
2000 United States presidential election.
[26] She led the crowd singing "
Over the Rainbow" and "
People Have the Power" at the campaign's rallies, and also performed at several of Nader's subsequent "
Democracy Rising" events.
[27] Smith was a speaker and singer at the first
protests against the Iraq War organized by
Louis Posner of
Voter March on September 12, 2002, as U.S. President
George W. Bush spoke to the
United Nations General Assembly.
[28] Smith 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.
Smith premiered two new
protest songs in
London in September 2006.
[29] Louise Jury, writing in
The Independent
, characterized them as "an emotional indictment of American and
Israeli foreign policy". Song "
Qana"
[] was about the Israeli airstrike on the
Lebanese village of
Qana. "Without Chains"
[] 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:
“
| 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.
| ”
|
In an interview, Smith stated that Kurnaz's family has contacted her and that she wrote a short preface for the book that he was writing.
[30] Kurnaz's book, "Five Years of My Life," was published in English by Palgrave Macmillan in March 2008, with Patti's introduction.
[31]
On March 26, 2003, ten days after
Rachel Corrie's death, Smith appeared in
Austin, Texas, and performed an anti-war concert. She prefaced her song "Wild Leaves" with the following comments and subsequently wrote a new song "Peaceable Kingdom" which was inspired by and is dedicated to Rachel Corrie.
[32] She supported
Barack Obama in the
2008 U.S. presidential election.
[33]
In 2009, in her Meltdown concert in Festival Hall, she paid homage to the Iranians taking part in
post-election protests by saying "
Where is My Vote?" in a version of the song
People Have the Power.
[34]
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."
[35] 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 spoke of Smith's influence on her at ''
Rolling Stones issue "The Immortals: 100 Greatest Artists of All Time", in which Patti Smith was counted number 47. [36] The Smiths members Morrissey and Johnny Marr shared an appreciation for Smith's
Horses'', and their song "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle" is a reworking of one of the album's tracks, "Kimberly".
[37] 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)
.
[38] U2 also cites Patti Smith as influence.
[39]
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.
[40] 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'."
[41]
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 has a dog named Patti in homage to Smith.
[42] Because of Page's suggestions, Smith's work and name also factor prominently in two of Page's movies,
Juno
and
The Tracey Fragments
.
In 1978 and 1979,
Gilda Radner portrayed a character called
Candy Slice on
Saturday Night Live
based on Smith.
Band members
1974
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- Lenny Kaye – guitar
- Richard Sohl – keyboards
|
1975–1979
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- Lenny Kaye – guitar
- Jay Dee Daugherty – drums
- Richard Sohl – keyboards
- Bruce Brody – keyboards (1978)
- Ivan Kral – bass
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1988
|
- Fred "Sonic" Smith – guitar
- Jay Dee Daugherty – drums
- Richard Sohl – keyboards
|
1996–2006
|
- Lenny Kaye – guitar
- Jay Dee Daugherty – drums
- Tony Shanahan – bass, keyboards
- Oliver Ray – guitar
|
2007–present
|
- Lenny Kaye – guitar
- Jay Dee Daugherty – drums
- Tony Shanahan – bass, keyboards
- Jackson Smith – guitar
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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)
- Twelve
(2007)
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Other albums
- Hey Joe / Piss Factory
(1974)
- Hey Joe / Radio Ethiopia
(1977)
- Set Free
(1978)
- The Patti Smith Masters
(1996)
- Land
(2002)
- Horses/Horses
(2005)
- iTunes Originals
(2008)
- The Coral Sea
(2008)
|
Bibliography
- Seventh Heaven
(1972)
- Early Morning Dream
(1972)
- Witt
(1973)
- Ha! Ha! Houdini!
(1977)
- Babel
(1978)
- Woolgathering
(1992)
- Early Work
(1994)
- The Coral Sea
(1996)
- Patti Smith Complete
(1998)
- Strange Messenger
(2003)
- Auguries of Innocence
(2005)
- Land 250
(2008)
- Trois
(2008)