musician singer author songwriter poet
Patti Smith was born on December 30, 1946, in Chicago, Illinois, United States. She was the eldest of four children born to Beverly Smith, a jazz singer turned waitress, and Grant Smith, a machinist at a Honeywell plant. After spending the first four years of her life on the south side of Chicago, Smith's family moved to Philadelphia in 1950 and then to Woodbury, New Jersey, in 1956, when she was 9 years old.
Smith attended Deptford High School, a racially integrated high school, where she recalls both befriending and dating her black classmates. While in high school, Smith also developed an intense interest in music and performance.
In the fall of 1964, she enrolled at the Glassboro State Teachers College (now Rowan University) with an intention to become a high school art teacher. However, poor academic performance and her continuous insistence to break away from the traditional curriculum to focus on the experimental artists led to her dropping out of the same.
Pitty Smith is the proud recipient of the Honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts from Pratt Institute on May 17, 2010.
In 1967, with vague aspirations of becoming an artist, Patti Smith moved to New York City and took a job working at a Manhattan bookstore. With a few years, they had formed a band and performed gigs in the downtown nightclubs and bars. Choosing performance poetry as she favored artistic medium, Smith gave her first public reading on February 10, 1971, at St. Mark's Church in the Bowery. The now-legendary reading, with guitar accompaniment from Lenny Kaye, introduced Smith as an up-and-coming figure in the New York art circle. Later the same year, she further raised her profile by co-authoring and co-starring with Sam Shepard in his semiautobiographical play "Cowboy Mouth."
Over the next several years, Smith dedicated herself to writing. In 1972, she published her first book of poetry, "Seventh Heaven," which earned flattering reviews but sold few copies. Two further collections, "Early Morning Dream" (1972) and "Witt" (1973) received similarly high praise. At the same time, Smith also wrote music journalism for magazines such as Creem and Rolling Stone.
In 1974, she formed a band and recorded the single "Piss Factory," now widely considered the first true "punk" song, which garnered her a sizable and fanatical grassroots following. The next year, after Bob Dylan lent her mainstream credibility by attending one of her concerts, Smith landed a record deal with Arista Records.
Smith's 1975 debut album, "Horses," featuring the iconic singles "Gloria" and "Land of a Thousand Dances," was a huge commercial and critical success for its manic energy, heartfelt lyrics, and skillful wordplay. The definitive early punk rock album, Horses is a near-ubiquitous inclusion on lists of the best albums of all time.
Her later work would, however, take a more commercial approach. Smith's most commercially successful album, "Easter" (1978), spawned a hit single, "Because the Night," which, co-written with Bruce Springsteen, reached number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
She raised a family and recorded an album, "Dream of Life," with her husband in 1988.
After Fred's sudden death from a heart attack in 1994, Smith released her comeback solo album "Gone Again" (1996), which also features the last studio performance of Jeff Buckley.
Patti remained a prominent fixture of the rock music scene with her albums "Peace and Noise" (1997), "Gung Ho" (2000), all of which were highly praised by music critics, proving Smith's ability to reshape her music to speak to a new generation of rock fans.
In 2004, Patti Smith came up with her subsequent album, "Trampin" under Columbia Records, which was to become the sister label for Arista Records. The album was a tribute to her mother who had passed away in 2002 and thus included songs about motherhood.
In 2005, she along with members of the Patti Smith Group, reunited for a live performance of their album, "Horses." A recorded version of the same was made available to the public the following year.
In 2006, many of her artistic works were exhibited at Trolley Gallery, London in the exhibition, "Sur Les Traces," the proceedings of which she donated to raise awareness for publication of Double-Blind. In 2008, her artwork Land 250 was exhibited in Paris by the Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain.
In 2009, she played an open-air concert in Florence's Piazza Santa Croce. Following year, she released the book, "Just Kids," which describes Manhattan of the 1970s and highlights her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe. The superb reception of the book led it to win the National Book Award in the category of Nonfiction.
In 2010, she made a cameo appearance in the film, "Socialisme," which was screened at the 2010 Cannes Festival. Following year, she made her television acting debut on the TV series "Law & Order: Criminal Intent' for the episode, "Icarus."
Patti released her latest album, "Banga" in June 2012. The album was critically praised and marveled at as it depicted her traditional style of mixing poetry with a rock. The same year, she provided lead vocals for the title track of the album, "Helen Burns."
Her other memoirs are "M Train" (2015), about her travels and other experiences, and "Year of the Monkey" (2019), which includes some of her photographs. "Devotion" (2017) is an installment in Yale University Press’s "Why I Write" series. In 2016 Smith accepted Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize for Literature on his behalf.
Currently, she is working on a crime novel which is based in London and Gothenburg, Sweden. Her deep-rooted love for detective stories from an early age led to her writing a book in the genre.
Patti Smith's 1975 released debut album, "Horses" under the band "The Patti Smith Group" was a major critical and commercial success. The album was very well received for its energetic disposition, soulful lyrics and skillful wordplay. The songs, "Gloria" and "Land of a Thousand Dances" emerged as the top contenders. Critics claimed the album to be the purest punk rock album and a must-inclusion in the list of 'best albums of all time.'
In 2005, the Minister of Culture for the French Republic awarded Smith the grade of Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres, the highest grade awarded to artists who have contributed significantly to furthering the arts throughout the world. Smith was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007.
Patti Smith has won numerous awards and accolades in her career, including the National Book Award in 2010 for her memoir "Just Kids" and the Polar Music Prize in 2011 for her services in music. In 2013, she was presented with the Katharine Hepburn Medal by Bryn Mawr College. The same year, she was greeted by Pope Francis in St Peter's Square.
(Patti Smith first presents an original and beautifully cr...)
2017(Patti Smith at the Minetta Lane features live audio of pe...)
2018(Patti Smith's Year of the Monkey is a beautiful, elegant,...)
2019(A collection of lyrical writings provides a tribute to th...)
1996During her childhood, Patti Smith was raised as a Jehovah's Witness in a very religious household. As so many other teenagers have done, Smith left this religious upbringing behind her, later singing "Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine." After a brief interest in Tibetan Buddhism, Smith moved away from all religious doctrines, having concluded that they were all merely "man-made laws that you can either decide to abide by or not."
In the 2000 United States presidential election Smith supported the Green Party and backed Ralph Nader. She was a supporter of Democratic candidate John Kerry in the 2004 election.
Smith is no fan of the current incumbent of the White House, describing Donald Trump as "very narcissistic" and "not very honorable."
She told ITV News: "It bothers me that a person representing our country, also representing us, is such an uneducated man, lacking empathy, compassion, a sense of history, a sense of the importance of allies, the importance of opening up one's door to people who are experiencing strife."
"What he's done to our environment, his lack of comprehension of the importance of the global conversation about our environment... It's like every single day, one can be angry, humiliated, or shocked at the things that he does."
When it comes to the tendency to look backward, Smith said, "I still feel the pain to see how the Trump administration has unraveled all of Obama's good works. Everything good that he did, especially for the environment, has been destroyed. So it's not nostalgia, it’s more pride and some pain."
She says she hopes people around the world understand he "does not represent the views of the lion's share of the American people."
Patti Smith has expressed her support for environmental activist Greta Thunberg. During an interview with ITV News, the singer, who became a highly influential figure in the punk scene during the 1970s, discussed the fact that her 1998 hit "People are the Power" has recently been adopted as a protest song against environmental complacency.
Patti, who has long been an activist, applauded recent climate crisis protests led by Swedish teenager Thunberg, adding that she believes the older generation still has a part to play in the fight to force change.
As a child, Smith experienced gender confusion. Described as a tomboy, she shunned "girly" activities and instead preferred roughhousing with her predominantly male friends. Her tall, lean and somewhat masculine body defied the images of femininity she saw around her. She later credited art for helping her embrace who she was, stating that her high school teacher introduced to artwork by Picasso and others which portrayed female figures that she identified with in ways that she hadn't done before. She even tore pictures of Picasso's Blue Period artwork from books to take back to her bedroom.
Patti Smith is considered a poet whose energy and vision found their voice in the most powerful medium of our culture - music. As one of the early pioneers of New York City's dynamic punk scene, Smith has been creating her unique blend of poetic rock and roll for over 35 years.
Physical Characteristics: Smith has a lazy left eye. Smith has had this affliction since she was a child, which no doubt contributed to the fact that she had a very shy disposition during her youth.
Allen Ginsberg, Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud, Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, Moby Dick by Herman Melville, Villette by Charlotte Bronte, The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde, The Waves by Virginia Woolf, A Season in Hell by Arthur Rimbaud, Illuminations by Arthur Rimbaud, The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
John Coltrane, Little Richard, the Rolling Stones, Madama Butterfly, The Beatles
Patti Smith developed an intense romantic relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe. The relationship was outlined with extreme poverty and Mapplethorpe's struggle with his own sexuality. The relationship ended when Mapplethorpe realized he was a homosexual. Though their romantic association ended, they remained friends until the latter's death in 1989. Also they were artistic partners all through.
From the beginning of the decade of 1970s, Patti was romantically involved with Blues Oyster Cult keyboardist, Allen Lanier. She separated from him in 1979.
Following her relationship with Allen Lanier, Smith fell completely head over heels for fellow musician Fred "Sonic" Smith, best known for being in the Detroit-based band MC5. The couple married in 1980, with a joke emerging that Smith only agreed to get married because she wouldn't have to change her name. For the next 17 years, Smith largely disappeared from the public scene, devoting herself to domestic life and raising the couple's two children, a son named Jackson, and a daughter named Jesse. Fred died in 1994 of heart failure.
In 2009, Smith's son Jackson married rock star Meg White of The White Stripes. The marriage ceremony took place in the backyard of Meg's bandmate and former partner, Jack White. Sadly, the marriage didn't last long, the couple divorced in 2013.
Smith got the chance to tour with Dylan during her music career.
In 1996, Patti got to collaborate with former Doors member Ray Manzarek on his solo album 'The Whole Thing Started with Rock & Roll Now It’s Out of Control.'
One of Smith's most regular collaborators is guitarist Lenny Kaye. The two of them first met in 1971 after Smith read an essay that Kaye had written on doo-wop music which was posted in a magazine. The two of them became regular collaborators, with Kaye providing his talents to the Patti Smith Group, and continued to work with Smith even after the Group was disbanded.
Not only were Derringer and Smith friends in their personal lives, but Smith also helped write a number of Derringer’s songs.
