Patti Smith
The Great Loo Roll Crisis of 2020 cont.
More vinyl distraction. Classic albums you can discover, or rediscover, for yourselves, while you’re waiting…
Patti Smith. She’s a mum. She married Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith of the MC5 and had kids. She was Smith before she met Fred, not that she’s a married name changing kinda gal, probably. Fred died young so Patti raised the kids pretty much on her own for a decade and dropped out of music. That’s my nod to Mother’ Day.
Anyway. This album. THIS album. I got my brother to use his pocket money to buy it in WH Smiths, Andover. I’d seen Patti do ‘Horses’ on the Old Grey Whistle Test in 1976. It was 40 years before I saw the clip again – thank you Youtube. Search it out. She’s utterly cool, compelling, convincing, raw, brilliant.
Wimmin in Rawk. Before Punk there was nobody like Patti Smith, and since really. Just the cover photo by an unknown Robert Mapplethorpe (her boyfriend) lets you know, this is… different. Poetry was Patti’s thing and a rock band was the easiest way to get it out there. She grew up on Kerouac and the Beats, even sitting at Allen Ginsberg’s dying bedside.
If you’ve never heard this album, you’re in for a treat. In fact, in case you haven’t, I’m not going to say much more. It’s from 1975 and I defy you to name anything else from then (or now) that sounds like it. Sure, it’s word heavy in parts and can be, er, intense. It’s not Carole King MOR. And if you don’t like it, Patti don’t care. This is her Art, her words, what she wanted to do with her Life, so she went out and did it. She ain’t no phoney.
Patti Smith
The Great Loo Roll Crisis of 2020 cont.
More vinyl distraction. Classic albums you can discover, or rediscover, for yourselves, while you’re waiting…
Patti Smith. She’s a mum. She married Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith of the MC5 and had kids. She was Smith before she met Fred, not that she’s a married name changing kinda gal, probably. Fred died young so Patti raised the kids pretty much on her own for a decade and dropped out of music. That’s my nod to Mother’ Day.
Anyway. This album. THIS album. I got my brother to use his pocket money to buy it in WH Smiths, Andover. I’d seen Patti do ‘Horses’ on the Old Grey Whistle Test in 1976. It was 40 years before I saw the clip again – thank you Youtube. Search it out. She’s utterly cool, compelling, convincing, raw, brilliant.
Wimmin in Rawk. Before Punk there was nobody like Patti Smith, and since really. Just the cover photo by an unknown Robert Mapplethorpe (her boyfriend) lets you know, this is… different. Poetry was Patti’s thing and a rock band was the easiest way to get it out there. She grew up on Kerouac and the Beats, even sitting at Allen Ginsberg’s dying bedside.
If you’ve never heard this album, you’re in for a treat. In fact, in case you haven’t, I’m not going to say much more. It’s from 1975 and I defy you to name anything else from then (or now) that sounds like it. Sure, it’s word heavy in parts and can be, er, intense. It’s not Carole King MOR. And if you don’t like it, Patti don’t care. This is her Art, her words, what she wanted to do with her Life, so she went out and did it. She ain’t no phoney.