Patti Smith

Patti Smith (full name Patricia Lee Smith), one of the founders of punk-rock, was born in Chicago in the middle of forties. Patti Smith was not well understood in school, that is why she found her redemption in music and poetry. Arthur Rimbaud’s creations and compositions of such legendary rockers as Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones and others had a truly huge impact on the future performer. She moved with her family a lot from one city to another, from one state to another: Illinois was changed by Pennsylvania, then was New Jersey and after that - New York. Patti moved to the latter by herself – she entered the college, but she had to quit studying because of the unintended pregnancy. Smith got the job at the factory; there she earned enough money to afford moving to New York and starting a new life. That was the place where the new part of Patti’s life began.

The performer found herself in a creative environment and she even took part in theatrical events and plays. That was also the time when Patti got acquainted with the guitarist Lenny Kaye and pretty soon they realized that their musical preferences are quite alike. Thereby Lenny began accompanying Smith while she read her poems. Step by step, the duo started to perform regularly; later it was joined by the pianist Richard Sohl in 1974. That was the very beginning of Smith’s musical career and it proved to be the real example of freedom of self-expression. Soon the band got busy with recording the first single titled Hey Joe / Piss Factory; the guitarist Tom Verlaine collaborated with the group at the studio. Some time later the band was joined by the bassist Ivan Kral and the drummer Jay Dee Daugherty. So the line-up was finally formed and the rockers began to perform a lot and they got listeners’ acknowledgement. The middle of seventies is the peak of punk-rock, its bloom, and the members of Patti Smith Group were among those people, who contributed a lot to the development of that genre.

However by the end of the seventies Patti’s interest for punk-rock was almost gone. The point is that it started coming out of the underground. Thereby in September of 1979 the group was disbanded and Smith did not even think about turning to the full-scale musical activity till the middle of nineties. She moved to Detroit with her husband and she was bringing up two children. But it was the destiny that made Patti come back to the creativity. The singer’s husband Fred Smith and the brother Todd died in 1994. These losses were too hard to cope with by herself only, so the poet Allen Ginsberg and a member of R.E.M. Michael Stipe advised Patti to get back to the music again – it had already saved her, so it would help to go through the difficult times again. The band was restored and soon Smith began recording the new studio attempt. She did not lose her love to the music, and every single person can make sure of it just by listening any of the singer’s albums. The activist of political movements again wars, the votaress of the green movement and one of the bravest rock performers has something to share with listeners. The rock stands its ground, and it is definitely a good thing to know.