Patti Smith

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December 30, 1946

Patricia Lee Smith

Fred 'Sonic' Smith (1 March 1980 - 4 November 1994) (his death) 2 children

1975 Horses

1976 Radio Ethiopia

1978 Easter

1979 Wave

1988 Dream of Life

1996 Gone Again

1997 Peace And Noise

2000 Gung Ho

2004 Trampin'

2007 Twelve

Actress

2011 Law & Order: Criminal Intent (TV series)

2003 The Big Empty

1998 The Rugrats Movie (voice)

1971 Robert Having His Nipple Pierced (short) Narrator (uncredited)

Writer

2009 Long for the City (Patti Smith in New York) (documentary short) (writer)

Appearances

2007-2011 Miradas 2 (TV series documentary)

2011 Nyhetsmorgon (TV series)

2011 Independent Lens (TV series documentary)

2011 Sleepless Nights Stories

1997-2011 The Charlie Rose Show (TV series)

2010 The Colbert Report (TV series)

2010 The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town (documentary)

2010 Film socialisme (segment "Des choses comme ça")

2010 Tavis Smiley (TV series)

2010 William S. Burroughs: A Man Within (documentary)

2009 P.O.V. (TV series documentary)

2009 The 25th Anniversary Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Concert (TV special)

2009 Corso: The Last Beat (documentary)

2009 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Live: Come Together (video)

2009 Deutschland, deine Künstler (TV series documentary)

2009 Long for the City (Patti Smith in New York) (documentary short)

2009 Burning Down the House: The Story of CBGB (documentary)

2009 Metrópolis (TV series documentary)

2008 Festival Updates (TV series short)

2008 Ce soir (ou jamais!) (TV series)

2008 One Fast Move or I'm Gone: Kerouac's Big Sur (documentary)

2008 The African Twintowers (documentary)

2008 Patti Smith: Dream of Life (documentary)

2007 La 2 noticias (TV series)

2007 Loops! (TV series)

2005-2007 The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (TV series)

2007 Seven Ages of Rock (TV series documentary)

1996-2007 Later with Jools Holland (TV series)

2007 Black White + Gray: A Portrait of Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe (documentary)

2007 The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (TV series)

2007 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony (TV movie)

2006 HARDtalk Extra (TV series)

1997-2005 Late Night with Conan O'Brien (TV series)

2005 All We Are Saying (TV documentary)

2005 You're Gonna Miss Me (documentary)

1998-2004 Late Show with David Letterman (TV series)

2003 Get Up, Stand Up (TV documentary)

2003 The Best of R.E.M.: In View 1988-2003 (video documentary) (segment "E-Bow the Letter")

2003 Brian Wilson: On Tour (video documentary)

2002 Jeff Buckley: Everybody Here Wants You (TV documentary)

2001 Kiss My Grits: The Herstory of Women in Punk and Hard Rock (documentary)

2000 Benjamin Smoke (documentary)

2000 CNN World Beat (TV series)

1999 Arista Records' 25th Anniversary Celebration (TV special documentary)

1998 The Nova Convention Revisited (video)

1998 Pop Odyssee 2 - House of the Rising Punk (TV special documentary)

1998 Who Is Harry Smith?

1998 American Masters (TV series documentary)

1997 Sessions at West 54th (TV series documentary)

1997 Scenes from Allen's Last Three Days on Earth as a Spirit (video documentary)

1996 R.E.M.: New Adventures in Hi-Fi Stereophonic on Film (video documentary short)

1996 Summer Cannibals (short)

1995 Dancing Barefoot (TV documentary)

1995 The History of Rock 'N' Roll, Vol. 9 (TV documentary)

1989 That's What Friends Are for: Arista's 15th Anniversary Concert (TV documentary)

1983 Burroughs (documentary)

1980 Mahagonny

1979 Kids Are People, Too (TV series)

1978 The South Bank Show (TV series documentary)

1978 Patti Smith: Still Moving (documentary short)

1977 Saturday Night Live (TV series)

1976 The Blank Generation (documentary)

1975 Night Lunch (documentary)

1973 Patti and Valli (documentary short)

1972 Seventh Heaven

1972 Early Morning Dream

1973 Witt

1977 Ha! Ha! Houdini!

1978 Babel

1992 Wool Gathering

1994 Early Work

1996 The Coral Sea

1998 Patti Smith Complete

2003 Strange Messenger

2005 Auguries of Innocence

2007 Poems (vintage classics)

2008 Land 250

2008 Trois

2008 Great Lyricists

2010 Just Kids

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Unorthodox, uncompromising, Patti Smith was a seminal figure in the New York punk movement and has remained a touchstone for later generations of rock artists. Born on 30 December 1946, Smith was raised in southern New Jersey by her atheist father and Jehovah's Witness mother. Leaving school at 16 she had brief, unsatisfying stints working in a factory and studying at a teaching college before she fled to New York in 1967 and immersed herself in the underground arts scene. She was inspired by the music of The Velvet Underground, the writing of William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, and - after a trip to Paris in 1969 - Jean Genet, Arthur Rimbaud and Antonin Artaud.

The Poetic Punk

Smith started writing poetry and in 1971 met Lenny Kaye, a walking rock and roll encyclopedia and guitarist who started accompanying her to poetry readings. She wrote several volumes of poetry, a play with Sam Shephard, articles for Creem Magazine, lyrics for Blue Oyster Cult, sleeve notes for Todd Rundgren and recited a Jim Morrison poem on a solo album by Ray Manzarek. In 1974 she released an independent single, 'Hey Joe'/'Piss Factory' - punk poetry set to rock music - featuring Kay, keyboards player Richard Sohl and guitarist Tom Verlaine who had recently formed Television. She augmented the group with bassist Ivan Kral and drummer Jay Dee Daughetty and joined Television at a two-month residency at CBGBs club at the beginning of 1975.

Smith signed to Arista Records and released Horses (1975), produced by The Velvet Underground's John Cale. The album opened with the line 'Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine' and included the poem 'Redondo Beach' and distinctive covers of rock classics like 'Gloria' and 'Land Of A Thousand Dances'. It was defiantly avant-garde but still made a brief appearance in the US Top 50.

The Patti Smith Group toured Britain and Europe before releasing Radio Ethiopia (1976), working with Aerosmith producer Jack Douglas who gave the album a harder feel with guitar solos, although the experimental spirit was never far beneath the surface and came to the fore on the 10-minute title track. However, the album was less successful than Horses and early in 1977 Smith's career came to a temporary halt when she fell off a stage in Tampa, Florida, while performing a whirling dervish dance and broke her neck. She spent nearly a year in a neck brace and undergoing physical therapy.

A Reluctant Star

Easter (1978) was a more commercial album (Smith preferred to call it 'communicative'), a Top 20 success in the US and UK. It was produced by Jimmy Iovine who caught the instinctive rock and roll passion in Smith's vocal style while leaving room for spontaneity and suspense. It featured the hit single (No. 5 in the UK, 13 in the US) 'Because The Night', a BruceSpringsteen song written during sessions for Darkness On The Edge Of Town but not released.

Wave (1979) was produced by Todd Rundgren, who again gave Smith and the group a user-friendly sound, but Smith's disenchantment with the trappings of stardom was evident on her version of The Byrds' 'So You Want To Be (A Rock And Roll Star)'. The album was dedicated to 'my clarinet teacher', Fred 'Sonic' Smith, a guitarist in seminal 1960s punk rockers The MC5 who also inspired the songs 'Frederick' and 'Dancing Barefoot'.

A Return To The Road

In 1980 Patti Smith married Fred Smith and retired from rock and roll to bring up a family in Detroit. She returned with Dream Of Life (1988) co-written with her husband who also co-produced with Jimmy Iovine.

It featured rallying calls ('People Have The Power'), songs of hope ('Paths That Cross') and lullabies ('The Jackson Song').

In 1994 Fred Smith died after a heart attack. A month later Patti Smith's brother Todd died from the same cause. Her response was to return to New York and start performing again, including a tour with Bob Dylan. She confronted her life as a mother, a widow and an artist on Gone Again (1996) and Peace And Noise (1997) and sang on R.E.M.'s hit single 'E-Bow The Letter'.

Smith continues to record albums - Gung Ho (2000), Trampin' (2004) - and perform. In 2005 she was the curator of London's Meltdown Festival at which she played the complete Horses album for the first time. In 2007, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.