Pattie Smith (1946-   )

By Rivka Willick

Patrica Lee Smith was born in Chicago at the very end of 1946 and she grew up in New Jersey. She, like Bruce Springsteen, had working class parents, her dad worked at the Honeywell Plant and her mom was a waitress.  However, her mom had been a jazz singer and maybe that’s where Pattie picked up her passion for cutting edge art.

Smith dropped out of college in the 60’s and lived the life of a starving artist in the Chelsey Hotel, NYC. That’s when she met avant-garde photographer Robert Mapplethorpe.  He became her mentor, muse, lover and lifetime friend and encouraged her to perform her poetry.  Early on she would perform her poetry with guitarist Lenny Kay. In time more instruments were added and she formed a rock and roll band.  Her style of chanting, singing, and shouting evolved into Punk.

In 1975 she released “Horses”, a punk rock and spoken poetry album.  The album cover features a photo of Smith taken by Mapplethorpe.  There is no attempt to be fashionable or tap into star power, instead Smith projects an a-sexual image, which like her music, challenged social norms.

Her third album features the song “Because the Night” co-written by Bruce Springsteen. It was her biggest commercial success. Smith, the innovator of punk rock, only recorded 4 albums in the 70’s before marring Fred Smith, former member of the rock band MC5, and moved to Michigan, where they lived in semi-retirement and raised a family.  After Fred died in 1994, Pattie Smith began recording again and released five more albums including Gone Again (1996) and Twelve (2007).  She also wrote the National Book Critics Circle winning memoir “Just Kids” which focused on her lifelong relationship with Mapplethorpe.

Reference:
Smith, Patti (2010). Just Kids, HarperCollins, New York.