Patti Smith Tribute Trivia

Patti Smith Tribute Trivia by Roxanne McDonald

Those who have suffered understand suffering and therefore extend their hand. ~Patti Smith

Patti Smith is the last person easily compartmentalized…or reduced to a list of trivia. But leaving the more expansive and exploratory pieces to those like thatof Greg Villepique of Salon.com, Steven Foehr of Shambhala Sun, and Dave Marsh at Rolling Stone, I offer highlights of the life and person–to place a special lens of interest on the ballsy, bombastic, and literary genius of a madwoman as she lived her own statement, came to know suffering as she defined it, and turned to saving others from such suffering…with the very poetic hand she suggests be extended to others suffering, now.

Accolades/Awards

Was the inspiration for SNL character, Candy Slice,” developed and performed by Gilda Radner.

First to sell out a poetry recital at CGBG’s—where Smith first played in 1975 and for which Smith would perform the closing night farewell (2006).

2005 Patti Smith presented with the Commander of the Order of the Arts and Letters by Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres—one of the highest of cultural honors in France.

2007 [March 12] Patti Smith inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She dedicated the honors to the memory of her late husband, Fred.

Ranked #15 on 100 Greatest Women of Rock N Roll list by Vh1.

Voted 47th Greatest Artist in Rock ‘n’ Roll by Rolling Stone.

Rumors and Rumblings

Born to and raised by Beverly, jazz singer, waitress who was a Jehovah’s Witness, and Grant, a Honeywell plant laborer who was atheist.

The oldest of four, Patti shared in caring for her siblings. She often made up stories and engaged them in acting out plays.

At seven, Patti was afflicted with scarlet fever—with which she experienced hallucinations such as the “amoebic, jewel-shaped indigo flame” of the coal stove she lay near. Because of the fever, she had to soon thereafter wear an eye patch; and was even more imaginative (so the stories and speculations go).

Also influencing her genius were the reading materials around the home, the Bible and UFO mags; The Tibetan Book of the Dead; black music and style; the writing of Louisa May Alcott, Robert Louis Stevenson, William Burroughs, Arthur Rimbaud, and Federico Garcia Lorca; the French Surrealists; sculptor Constantin Brancusi; French actor Jeanne Moreau; and the influence of a mother who taught her fantasy and both parents teaching her, or giving her, her sensibility.

Associations

As a people we can shed our skins. ~Patti Smith

Lived in the Chelsea Hotel at the same time (1968) as Burroughs, Joplin, Slick, Hendrix, Reed, and others such as those known as of Warhol’s “Factory”.

After a disagreement, Mom had gone out and bought her an apology gift—her first Bob Dylan album. Years later, Dylan would show up at the Other End, where Patti was [playing]: “It was neat that I got to see Dylan, got to spend anytime with him before I did my record. I never discussed nothing. We never discussed nothing. We never talked. I mean we talked. . . You know how I felt? I been talking to him in my brain for 12 years, and now I don’t have nothing to say to him….”

List of lovers has included Jim Carroll, Tom Verlaine, Sam Shepard, and Robert Mapplethorpe.

Patti Smith has suffered the loss of several of her closest connections—Richard Sohl, Patti Smith Group piano player, died at 37; her best friend, renowned iconoclastic photographer Robert Mappelthorpe, died at 43; her brother Todd died of a stroke; and her husband of 18 years, Fred “Sonic” Smith, guitarist of MC5, died of a heart attack at 44 (in 1994).

Actions

I find that sorrow breaks the heart open, makes you more vulnerable…. In some ways sorrow is a beautiful state. It can heighten one’s sense of humor. You can find strength and clarity in sorrow. Sorrow is a gift. You have to treasure it. The important thing is to honor it. ~Patti Smith

Because she was of a working class family, once she finished school she went to work at a factory (work she found torturous), and put herself through teaching college.

1969 – Went to Paris, where she did performance art and busking.

1969 – Appeared in the Jackie Curtis play Femme Fatale.

1971 – Made a one-night-only appearance as “woman who looks like a crow” in Sam Shepard’s Cowboy Mouth.

1976- While doing promotional touring for Radio Ethiopia, slipped off stage and broke several vertebrae.

Wrote “About a Boy” [on Gone Again] as a tribute to Kurt Cobain [who had written “About a Girl”].

Did rock journalism for years (to “subsidized her career)

1996 - After suffering the loss of so many loved ones, significantly her husband of 18 years, Smith had experienced the inability to write and to pray. In 1996, however, she was resuscitating both—and not worrying, either about the dry spell that instead of horrifying her, she had said, humbled her.

2000 – Actively supported and campaigned for Ralph Nader—playing “People Have the Power” and “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”, the former of which was used for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony closing jam.

2000 – Raised money for Nader’s 2004 campaign.

2005/05 – Went on tour with Nader to rally against the war in Iraq.

Attributions (Comments about Patti Smith)

“When I was in high school in the suburbs, in the early-’80s, Patti Smith was no kind of icon. Musically, she didn’t jibe with buzz-saw punk, ominously danceable new wave or pasteurized FM radio rock; she evaded the jury-rigged radar of adolescent rebellion. Teen rebels, of course, generally want an existing “countercultural” pack to join, complete with wardrobe and hairdo guidelines. Even if Patti Smith had not recently stopped making records (and even if we’d known to listen to the ones she had made), she was too much of a misfit for the misfits to embrace.” Greg Villepique, Salon.com

“…Like Dylan’s, the myth of Patti Smith’s origins is intricately constructed and endlessly fascinating. Unlike him, she has managed to keep most parts of it straight through several retellings. No one know[s] how much is invented, how much flat fact. Maybe it all happened, maybe none of it. I’d rather not know — either way.” Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 1976.

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