Patti Smith Rocks Horses
The Artist Revisits the Seminal LP on Film
Singer/songwriter, poet, artist, author, Patti Smith has been trailblazing for many of her 71 years on earth. Chicago-born and New Jersey-raised, the young artist made her way to New York City in the mid-60s, where she met and fall in love with future photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. Together they forged creative lives around Andy Warhol’s 60s and 70s Manhattan-era of art, punk music, and free love. Their intense romance and long friendship was the subject of her memoir, Just Kids, which came out in 2010, and won her the National Book Award for Non-Fiction.
Patti has been writing poetry since she was a kid herself, and began doing spoken word in the music scene happening around clubs like Max’s Kansas City and other underground Manhattan hot spots. Other musicians, like Lenny Kaye (guitar), Ivan Kral (bass), and Jay Dee Daugherty (drums), began gathering around the tough-talking, no-nonsense singer and soon the Patti Smith Group was signed to Arista Records, courtesy of Clive Davis. In 1975 they recorded their first album, Horses, with Mapplethorpe providing the stark black and white photo images for the cover. It was a huge hit with critics but a modest success commercially, which was just fine with Patti, who once said that she wanted “to make a record that would make a certain type of person not feel alone. People who were like me, different … I wasn’t targeting the whole world. I wasn’t trying to make a hit record.”
Nonetheless, it did strike a chord with many: it was named the second best LP of 1975 by Billboard, behind Dylan and the Band’s The Basement Tapes; was christened the first “art punk” album; and is, today, considered one of the most influential recordings in rock ‘n’ roll history.
Which takes us to 2015, forty years after its release. To commemorate the anniversary, Smith and her band recorded two concerts, playing the entire LP in front of Los Angeles audiences lucky enough to witness it live. Behind the camera of Horses: Patti Smith and her Band is documentary director Steven Sebring, no stranger to Patti’s act, having also directed her 2008’s documentary Patti Smith: Dream of a Life.
The result is an exciting, fist-raising, yet surprisingly comforting cinematic performance that secures Patti’s warm, thoughtful place in our rock ‘n’ roll souls. The film recently debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival, followed with a riveting live performance by the artist herself. With Lenny Kaye on guitar (he could be her twin with their matching grey manes and thin, angular faces), her kids Jackson and Jesse Smith on guitar and keyboard, Patti sang familiar songs including a rousing cover of Buffalo Springfield’s For What It’s Worth—dedicated to the Parkland Five.
And then Patti threw the audience a frenzy-causing curveball: introducing us to her guest star, Bruce Springsteen. The Boss strode out in his black leather jacket and the two wowed the crowd with a duet of their hit song, Because the Night. But wait! There’s more! For the final song of the night, Patti’s rebellious anthem, People Have the Power, co-written with her late husband, Fred Smith, she invited one of her best friends on stage, the sorely missed, former lead singer of R.E.M., Michael Stipe.
Needless to say, it was a night to remember and to feel damn grateful to have been there. Horses: Patti Smith and her Band opens soon.