Patti Smith & her band

Patti Smith & her band

Patti Smith is an American singer, poet and visual artist associated with punk, art punk and art rock, as well as blues, folk rock, garage rock and glam rock. Born Patricia Lee Smith in Chicago in 1946, she grows up in Deptford, New Jersey, and later moves to New York City, where she becomes part of the city’s early punk and performance-art circles.

Early work and New York scene

Smith leaves college in 1967 and works in a bookstore before meeting photographer Robert Mapplethorpe in New York. Their friendship lasts until his death in 1989, and his photographs appear on several Patti Smith Group album covers. She also works with poet Janet Hamill, appears in Jackie Curtis’s play Femme Fatale with Wayne County, and performs in Sam Shepard’s Cowboy Mouth. As a member of the St. Mark’s Poetry Project in the early 1970s, she paints, writes and performs, and she also writes rock journalism, including work published in Creem.

In 1969 she goes to Paris with her sister, busks and does performance art before returning to New York, where she lives at the Hotel Chelsea and frequents Max’s Kansas City and CBGB. Her background in poetry and religious education later shapes her lyrics and performance style, and she is known for combining spoken-word delivery with rock music.

Patti Smith Group

By 1974, Smith is performing rock with guitarist Lenny Kaye and a full band that includes Ivan Kral on bass, Jay Dee Daugherty on drums and Richard Sohl on piano. Robert Mapplethorpe finances the group’s first single, Hey Joe/Piss Factory, which pairs a version of the rock standard with a spoken-word section about Patty Hearst and a second track about factory work and Arthur Rimbaud’s Illuminations. The act signs to Arista Records through Clive Davis, and the Patti Smith Group becomes the vehicle for her most widely known work.

Her 1975 debut album Horses, produced by John Cale, mixes punk rock and spoken poetry and opens with a version of Van Morrison’s Gloria and Smith’s statement, “Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine.” The album becomes a key release in New York punk. The follow-up, Radio Ethiopia, has a rougher sound and receives poor reviews, though Smith continues to perform songs from it. Patti Smith Group then releases Easter in 1978, her most commercially successful album, featuring Because the Night, co-written with Bruce Springsteen and a Top 20 US hit. Wave follows in 1979 and includes Frederick and Dancing Barefoot, both of which receive radio play.

1980s and later recordings

Smith spends much of the 1980s in semi-retirement in St. Clair Shores, Michigan, with her family. She returns with Dream of Life in 1988, which includes People Have the Power. After the death of Fred Smith in 1994, she returns to New York and resumes touring. In 1996 she releases Gone Again, which includes About a Boy, a tribute to Kurt Cobain, and collaborates with Michael Stipe on E-Bow the Letter by R.E.M. She follows with Peace and Noise in 1997 and Gung Ho in 2000. A box set, The Patti Smith Masters, appears in 1996, and Land (1975–2002) follows in 2002, including a cover of Prince’s When Doves Cry.

She releases Trampin’ in 2004, with songs about motherhood and a tribute to her mother. In 2012 she releases Banga, an album shaped in part by literature, including references to The Master and Margarita and Nikolai Gogol.

Performance, collaboration and recognition

Smith works with a wide range of artists, including Allen Lanier of Blue Öyster Cult, Michael Stipe and Bob Dylan. She also appears on R.E.M.’s E-Bow the Letter and performs live with the band. Her song People Have the Power becomes one of her most enduring pieces, and she continues to perform material from across her catalogue, including songs from Radio Ethiopia.

Smith receives major recognition for her work. She is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007, and she is named a Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture in 2005. She also mounts solo visual exhibitions, including Strange Messenger at The Andy Warhol Museum and Land 250 at the Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, and she receives an honorary doctorate from Rowan University.

Personal life

Smith’s parents are Beverly, a jazz singer, and Grant, who works at the Honeywell plant. Raised as the daughter of a Jehovah’s Witness mother, she later leaves organised religion as a teenager. She has two children, Jackson and Jesse, with Fred Smith, former guitarist for MC5 and Sonic’s Rendezvous Band.