She looks simultaneously defiant and vulnerable — a perfectly apt combination for a musician, poet, painter and photographer whose art has always been as much about grace as ferocity.
Horses is an iconoclastic record; the songs are full of the ecstatic violence of things being shattered in order to be remade. It's the sound of Smith "Rimbaud with amps," as the Polar prize committee called her last year claiming her place among her poet heroes and doing so with her signature mix of kinship and contempt.
In the months after the release of Horses , the Patti Smith Group played CBGBs, making that shabby downtown New York dive bar the centre of a global movement and the "godmother of punk" epithet has stuck. She'd long been a cultural icon when , she published Just Kids , her elegiac memoir of her youth in New York with the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. Now, at 65, an age when many female cultural figures seem invisible, she's more gloriously visible than ever — her mannish black outfits, still wild hair and huge easy grin make her an arresting figure.
There's less vulnerability in her expression now. Instead, she looks almost bashful at just how hard the world continues to love her. A consummate badass, poetic visionary and one of few living musicians for whom the distinction "icon" is valid, Patti Smith — with her 11th album, Banga out next week — remains unassailably, unapologetically herself.
She shows us how to be an artist… and she also shows us a way to live. Hermione Hoby. I just did a show with Patti on Mother's Day, which obviously was a tricky night for me because my mother [the folk singer Kate McGarrigle] died a couple of years ago, but it was amazing to watch Patti interact with her daughter, talk about her own mom and show this very feminine side and just be herself. The thing that was always extraordinary to me was that she gave up music to bring up her children for 10 years.
Apparently when they moved back to New York after Fred ["Sonic" Smith, her husband] had died, those kids had no idea that their mother was this huge rock music icon. That she had the confidence to leave and move back was amazing. What was interesting at that show we did was that she's a very nice person, very generous and then she goes out there and she's a fucking rock star — you just can't contend with it!
Everybody's wonderfully afraid of her — it's hard not to be a fan. I remember being struck by the image of her on the cover of Horses. Her physique is remarkable and although she's not playing with sexpot identity, it's there, and she's so young, too, so you see that vulnerability.
The shirt she's wearing has this very masculine image and I thought it was amazingly refreshing. I'd been brought up with my mother's music, which was one way women could sound.
And Patti was the other way women could sound. It was an eye-opener to me. Reading this on mobile? Click here to watch Horses. I was very moved by Gone Again , the record she made after her husband died. I was in my early 20s and that record was on repeat all the time. It seemed to me that, speaking from her late 40s, she had an understanding and a voice that was very wise. So for me she's not only a renegade romantic poet but a wise woman as well.
It really is amazing what she's accomplished just by being herself and knowing herself so well. He used a track of hers in the film called Rock n' Roll Nigger. It's a powerful song that uses the word to say that all radicals are niggers. She does this rant: "Jimi Hendrix was a nigger! Jesus Christ and grandma too! She's always been the only one saying what she says, in the way that she says it. But her appeal is much richer than that. She has an uncommon intelligence and the way she views things is incredible, mixing her imagination, references and her perspective on politics or pop culture.
All you have to do is read her lyrics and poetry to understand where she comes from. For me, the greatest artists do that — they connect with you but then they open your eyes to something deeper.
First of all, I was struck by her voice. It was unique and wasn't trying to be pretty, but it seemed to be saying a lot.
When Radio Ethiopia came out, people seemed a little down on it, but I loved it. Her voice came into its own on that record. I would listen to it before I went to school and it would be in my head all day.
And my body. She has always put out the vibe that art and rock'n'roll are in the same place if you want it and know where to look. She was making connections between Rimbaud and Jean Genet and Ginsberg and Burroughs and rock'n'roll and seemed really to live it, which was great to be turned on to as a fan. Click here to see Patti performing Soul Kitchen. I saw her live at the Apollo in Manchester when Easter came out.
I was 15 but really serious about my music by then. It was the first time I saw anyone bringing a whole lifestyle with them on to the stage. I was right up front and it was awe-inspiring and not just because I was so young.
At But where? I eventually bump into her in the lobby. It turns out that she is actually on vacation as we speak, a three-day stint in London that involves watching her friend Ralph Fiennes in Richard III, visiting the grave of French philosopher Simone Weil in Ashford, and, er, speaking to me.
Officially, we are here to talk about Hyde Park, where she will perform on 1 July as support to Massive Attack. Playing there has been a lifelong dream — she remembers feeling heartbroken after Brian Jones, her favourite Rolling Stone, died, and recalls the concert the band held in the park afterwards.
It seemed like all of youth was in Hyde Park that day. I used to go and see it in the 70s. I still do. When I was younger, I wanted to be just like him and never grow up. If the idea of Smith making pilgrimages to see a fictional flying boy during her punk heyday seems a little unexpected, then that is probably because Smith is on very casual terms with convention.
By the time she was 20, she had already abandoned the life set out for her she gave a child up for adoption when she became pregnant aged 16, and later quit a factory job then moved to New York to pursue her dreams of becoming a poet.
Back then, the city was gritty and dangerous — which was how Smith liked it. It felt like the possibilities were endless. I was 20 years old, and sleeping in graveyards and subways. Eighty per cent of the time, I could turn the situation around to my favour.
Smith often ended her sets with Piss Factory , an autobiographical tale about finding the strength to escape a dead-end job. She says the same guys heckling her at the start would find themselves relating to it and on her side by the end. Gung Ho explored those who -- as the title phrase implies -- entered into service with enthusiastic hearts, from Mother Teresa, who exemplified charity, to resilient Vietnamese patriot Ho Chi Minh. In , Smith read at the Whitney and Guggenheim Museums.
James Cathedral. She worked with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in conjunction with its William Blake program in June and returned to work with the museum in in conjunction with its Diane Arbus exhibit. In September , Strange Messenger, an exhibit of drawings, newly created silkscreens of the remains of the World Trade Center and black-and-white Polaroid photographs printed in silver gelatin process, opened at the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. During , her art show traveled to Glasgow, Scotland and Sligo, Ireland, and it continues to build as it travels around the world.
On June 10, , 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. On October 20, , Smith was signed to Columbia Records. In spring , her first Columbia recording, Trampin' , was released. It included a digital remaster on one disk and a live disk that was recorded at the Royal Festival Hall as part of the Meltdown Festival in London in summer A new CD of cover songs entitled Twelve was released in spring on Columbia Records and was followed by an international tour.
In addition to recording, performing, art and writing, Smith remains strongly involved in social issues and continues to participate in various human rights organizations.
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