DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli. Patti Smith is now considered one of the wise women of rock 'n' roll, an eloquent chronicler of her life in music and in a series of acclaimed memoirs. But 50 years ago, she was a scrounging poet who wanted to be a rock star on her own very literary terms, and her debut album, "Horses," announced a unique artist. Today, we're going to listen back to portions of two of Terry's interviews with Patti Smith about her early days as a poet and performer. But first, rock critic Ken Tucker takes a look back and tells us about the new anniversary edition of "Horses," which is supplemented with previously unreleased music.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GLORIA")
PATTI SMITH: (Singing) Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine. Melting in a pot of thieves, wild card up my sleeve.
KEN TUCKER: Fifty years on, Patti Smith's "Horses" still sounds like nothing else before or since its arrival in 1975. At the time, Smith had one foot in poetry, the other in rock 'n' roll. Her spirit animals were the French surrealist Arthur Rimbaud and The Doors demigod Jim Morrison. Both bad boys who died young, they inspired Patti as self-mythologizing, rebellious innovators. But they also served as warning lessons in the self-control and discipline necessary to be a long-lasting, prolific artist, which the 78-year-old Smith has indeed become. Consider, however, what it was like to see, for the first time, the 28-year-old Smith as she struck an androgynous pose in a white shirt and black-tie cover photo by pal Robert Mapplethorpe, and consider what it must have been like to first hear her tremulous croon on a song like "Free Money."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "FREE MONEY")
SMITH: (Singing) Every night before I go to sleep. Find a ticket, win a lottery. Scoop the pearls out from the sea, cash them in and buy you all the things you need. Every night before I rest my head, see those dollar bills go swirling around my bed. I know they're stolen, but I don't feel bad. I take that money, buy you things you never had. Oh, baby, it would mean so much to me. Oh, baby...
TUCKER: Music critics write about 1970s downtown Manhattan Patti Smith performing at CBGB's, at Max's Kansas City, but they ignore or aren't aware of the true crucible of her talent, St. Mark's in-the-Bowery, the Lower East Side church and ground zero for the New York School of Poetry. This was the site of open readings, where Patti could rub shoulders with key influences like Allen Ginsberg, John Giorno and Anne Waldman. Patti's print poetry was flatly derivative, but Smith's creative breakthrough came in collaboration with guitarist Lenny Kaye. Together, they set her poems to music, with Lenny plugging in to accompany her words at readings. Very quickly, they were welding electric guitar to epic creations, as in this nine minutes plus opus, combining one of her poems with a cover of Chris Kenner's "Land Of 1000 Dances." It's the song that gave the album its name.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LAND")
SMITH: The boy was in the hallway drinking a glass of tea. From the other end of the hallway, a rhythm was generating. Another boy was sliding up the hallway. His gold nerves merged perfectly with the hallway. He merged perfectly with the hallway. A radiant light, an aura around the mirror, merged and looked at Johnny. He merged perfectly, the mirror in the hallway. Fastened in the kitchen.
(Singing) The boy looked at Johnny. Johnny wanted to run. But the movie kept moving as planned. Johnny wanted to run, but the movie kept moving as planned. The boy took Johnny. The boy took Johnny. He pushed him against the locker. He pushed him against the locker. He drove it in. He drove it in. He drove it home. He drove it deep in Johnny. The boy disappeared, Johnny fell on his knees, started crashing his head against the locker. Started crashing his head against the locker. Started laughing hysterically when suddenly Johnny gets the feeling he's being surrounded by horses, horses, horses, horses coming in in all directions, white shining, silver studs with their nose in flames. He saw horses, horses, horses, horses, horses, horses, horses, horses. Do you know how the pony...
TUCKER: Patti quickly went full-on rock star, getting signed to Clive Davis' then-new Arista Records, alongside unlikely label mates, such as Barry Manilow and Lou Rawls. At once a punk and an artist, Smith had to grapple with the question of what it meant to be avant-garde when you also love The Marvelettes.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE HUNTER GETS CAPTURED BY THE GAME")
SMITH: (Singing) Every day, things change. And the world puts on a new face. Certain things rearrange, and this ol' world seems like a new place. Oh, yes...
TUCKER: That's "The Hunter Gets Captured By The Game," a '60s hit for Motown's Marveletts written by Smokey Robinson and adored by Smith, who has always had juicy taste in oldies. The new 50th anniversary edition of "Horses" includes some alternate takes of songs from this album and others that would appear on subsequent releases. The one previously unreleased song is called "Snowball."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SNOWBALL")
SMITH: Oh, don't look behind me now. I know what's coming. Big, white, hairy, bald, late, looking like a snowball. (Singing) When it hits me, I'm so amazed. When it hits me, I'm feeling crazed. When it hits me, I start to recall memories flooding like a snowball, rolling down the hill. Snowball, giving me a chill. Your face that I used to see. Places that we used to be. They start...
TUCKER: It's pretty easy to hear why "Snowball" didn't make the "Horses" cut. It's a more conventional pop song, one that doesn't possess the grand delirium Smith was going for. Right from the start, she knew how she wanted to sound and reportedly fought with her producer, The Velvet Underground's John Cale, to achieve the sounds she heard in her head.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BREAK IT UP")
SMITH: (Singing) Car stoped in a clearing. Ribbon of life, it was nearing. I saw the boy break out of his skin. My heart turned over, and I crawled in. He cried, break it up. Oh, I don't understand. Break it up.
TUCKER: These days, Patti Smith is still touring. She has a Substack newsletter to chronicle her dreamiest thoughts and has a new memoir called "Bread Of Angels." The reissue of "Horses" fits right into her current context, sounding as urgent and immediate as it did a half century ago.
BIANCULLI: Ken Tucker reviewed the new 50th anniversary edition of "Horses." It was released last month by Legacy Recordings. After a break, we'll listen to a portion of Terry's 1996 interview with Patti Smith. This is FRESH AIR.
This is FRESH AIR. November 10 marks 50 years since Patti Smith released her debut album "Horses." One of the biggest influences on Smith was her friendship with the artist Robert Mapplethorpe. They both were 20-year-old aspiring artists when they met in 1967 in New York City. They soon moved in together and helped nurture each other's artistic development. Mapplethorpe became one of the most controversial artists of his time. His photographs of nudes, often in erotic and sadomasochistic poses, put him at the center of a battle over censorship and federal funding of the arts. Mapplethorpe died of AIDS in 1989 at the age of 42.
Terry first spoke with Patti Smith in 1996 when Smith had published a book of short prose poems dedicated to and inspired by Mapplethorpe. The book was called "The Coral Sea." Terry asked Smith about a famous photograph he had taken of her.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)
TERRY GROSS: He took the photograph, perhaps the most famous photograph of you that was on the cover of your album, "Horses," I think, in 1975, in which you're wearing a kind of oversized white shirt and an undone tie with, like, a suit jacket slung over your shoulder. Tell us how that photograph came about.
SMITH: Well, we wanted to take the cover, and Robert knew where he wanted to take it. It was up in Sam Wagstaff's apartment in New York City, which was a very white room. And there was a triangle of light that used to come through a window. And he was extremely interested in photographing that triangle. And we went up there and I remember the light started changing. And he wanted us to hurry up, and we had to run. We couldn't get a cab. And we had to run as fast as we could because he could really feel the light changing.
And in terms of my clothing, it was just my usual clothes. I used to like - I really wanted to have a Baudelairean type of look. I wanted a black-and-white sort of a mixture of just how I was and little 19th century feel in it. But in the end, the final photograph, which some people have made quite a bit of the particular pose or stance in the photograph, was really a tribute to Frank Sinatra.
GROSS: "The Capitol Years" (laughter).
SMITH: Well, no. Actually, he did he did a movie. I think it was called - oh, man. I don't think it was "Pal Joey." It was the Joe E. Lewis story. And Joe E. Lewis was a singer that got in trouble with the mob. And he got his throat cut, and he wound up a comedian. I don't know if you remember that.
GROSS: Yeah, it's the movie that "All The Way" comes from.
SMITH: Yeah, that's right. The last scene of it, Frank Sinatra is walking alone down a dark street with a lantern. There's a lantern-lit street. And he's sort of philosophically talking to himself in a pane of glass. And he slings his coat over his shoulder and, you know, philosophically walks into the city sunset. But I always thought it was cool the way he slung his coat over his shoulder. So that was the only - there was only a couple of photographs in that particular shooting like that, but that was the one Robert picked, the Frank Sinatra shot.
GROSS: "The Joker Is Wild" I think is what it's called, yeah.
SMITH: Yeah, that's it.
GROSS: (Laughter).
SMITH: Yeah, that's it, "The Joker Is Wild." Appropriate title.
GROSS: You met Robert Mapplethorpe in 1967 when you were 20. Do I have that right?
SMITH: Yes.
GROSS: How did you meet?
SMITH: Well, we met in Brooklyn. I was around Pratt, Pratt Institute of Art, where he went to school. I had a friend there, and my friend had moved, and I was looking for my friend. And I knocked on the door where he used to be and someone said, well, I don't know where your friend is, but you can ask the guy in there. And I went in another room and saw this kid sleeping on this cot. And I just stood there and was watching him sleep. And he opened his eyes and smiled at me. And that's how we met.
GROSS: Now, was he already taking photographs when you met?
SMITH: No, he didn't start taking photographs till late '69 when we were at the Chelsea Hotel. He really only started taking photographs - he was doing drawings, paintings and collages and some constructions. And then later he did installations. But in his huge montages and collages, he used a lot of magazine pictures, holy cards, existing pictures, reproductions of Michelangelo, who he greatly admired, reproductions of statues and sculpture. But he was never satisfied. And he really started taking photographs to insert within his other work. He didn't set out to become a photographer. He really just wanted to create his own information for his drawings and montages.
GROSS: Did you help each other with your work?
SMITH: Always.
GROSS: What ways were you able to help him? And how did he help you?
SMITH: Well, we helped each other in any way we could, whether it be financially or an encouraging word or constructive criticism, and just mutual belief in each other's work. That's something really that no one can duplicate nor take away from you is when you have another human being that completely believes in your work.
GROSS: Was he the first person who completely believed in your work?
SMITH: I'd say so, yes.
GROSS: You've said that Mapplethorpe helped you make the transition from psychotic to serious art student. What did you mean by that?
SMITH: Well, I'm never quite sure of what I meant. You know, when people ask me to explain what I said 20 years ago or something, it's - I don't - I couldn't exactly say what I meant, but I probably - when I met him, I felt like my work was really an extension of my neuroses and - instead of an extension of intelligence. And he, by helping me believe in myself as a person and gaining respect for my own intelligence, shifted the emphasis, where the work came from. I really did start writing and drawing when I was younger to relieve myself from certain emotional tensions. But...
GROSS: Like what?
SMITH: Well, I mean, whatever tensions people have when they're growing up, whether it be fear or sexual tensions or parental tension, youthful paranoia, I don't know. Name it.
GROSS: No, I think he gave you the money to record your first record, the 45 that had "Hey Joe" on one side and "Piss Factory" on the other. Tell me the story of that.
SMITH: Well, it's really simply, Robert - you know, for a long time, I had helped him financially, and Robert's situation got more solid. He had a really benevolent and wonderful patron, Sam Wagstaff. And through Sam Wagstaff, Robert was able to finance our first independent - well, our only independent single. And that's all the story was. I wanted to do a single and didn't have the money, and he gave it to me. So we went into Electric Lady Land one night and did it in one night.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PISS FACTORY")
SMITH: (Singing) Oh, we may look the same, shoulder to shoulder, sweating 110 degrees. But I will never faint. I will never faint. They laugh, and they expect me to faint. But I will never faint. I refuse to lose. I refuse to fall down because, you see, it's the monotony that's got to me.
(Singing) Every afternoon like the last one. Every afternoon like a rerun. Next to Dot Hook. And yes, we look the same - both pumping steel, both sweating. But you know she got nothing to hide. And I got something to hide here called desire. I got something to hide here called desire. And I will get out of here.
(Singing) You know that fear potion is just about to come. In my nose is the taste of sugar. And I got nothing to hide here save desire. And I'm going to go. I'm going to get out of here. I'm going to get out of here. I'm going to get on that train. And I'm going to go on that train and go to New York City. I'm going to do something. I'm going again. I'm going to be somebody.
Robert always - when we were younger, he always thought that I should sing, although it was never really an ambition of mine. And he was really happy when I wanted to do the single, and he was really pleased to be a part of it.
GROSS: Had he heard you sing? I mean, would you sing - were you singing in the house before you were singing in performance?
SMITH: Yeah, you know, I'd, you know, be making spaghetti or washing clothes and sing. I used to sing little songs, and, for some reason, he liked my singing. He used to think - I used to sing little blues songs and things, and he used to think I - well, he always thought I should sing.
GROSS: You think you would have done it if he didn't nudge you in that direction?
SMITH: Well, he did push me towards that, but it was a series of people, actually. You know, Sam Shepard was really instrumental in getting me to sing in public. I had a few different friends that seemed to think that I had an bend toward that. And I really do believe if it wasn't for those friends or Lenny Kaye and a few others, no, I don't believe that I would be singing, at least not recording. I mean, I might still be singing around the house making spaghetti.
GROSS: (Laughter).
SMITH: But I can't say that I would have been recording.
BIANCULLI: Patti Smith speaking to Terry Gross in 1996. After a break, we'll listen to portions of another of their conversations, this one from 2010. Also, we'll hear from actress Laura Dern in a 2023 interview discussing her mother, Diane Ladd, who died this week at age 89. And I'll review "Pluribus," the new series from "Breaking Bad" creator Vince Gilligan. I'm David Bianculli, and this is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
BIANCULLI: This is FRESH AIR. I'm TV critic David Bianculli. We're commemorating the 50th anniversary of Patti Smith's debut album, "Horses." She's considered the godmother of punk. With her first album, she created a hybrid of poetry and rock and established a high-energy performance style that was sometimes aggressive and sometimes ecstatic. When Terry spoke with Patti Smith in 2010, Smith had written the memoir "Just Kids," about growing up in New Jersey, moving to New York in 1967, evolving into a poet, songwriter and performer and beginning a relationship with artist Robert Mapplethorpe.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)
GROSS: You say that until a friend suggested that you be in a rock 'n' roll band, it had never occurred to you. It was just, like, not part of your world.
SMITH: No. Why would it? You know, I'm not a musician. You know, I don't play any - I didn't play any instrument. I didn't have any specific talents. I mean, I came from the South Jersey/Philadelphia area, and in the early '60s, everybody sang. They sang on street corners, three-part harmonies, a cappella. I knew - most of my friends were better singers than me. There was nothing in what I did that would give a sense that I should be in a rock 'n' roll band. Also, girls weren't in rock 'n' roll bands. I mean, they sang, but, you know, the closest thing to a rock singer - a real rock singer that we had was Grace Slick. And I certainly didn't have Grace Slick's voice.
GROSS: So you found the guitarist Lenny Kaye. You read an article by him about a cappella groups, and you really liked it. And you found him. You sought him out. He was working at a bookstore in the village. If you had not found Lenny Kaye, do you think you wouldn't have been in a rock 'n' roll band? 'Cause he has been your guitarist kind of forever.
SMITH: Well, I can't say what would happen. It was really Sam Shepard who suggested - you know, I said to Sam when I - when Robert helped me through Gerard Malanga to get my first reading, I said, I got to do something special because if I don't do something special, Gregory's going to, you know, throw tomatoes at me or something - Gregory Corso, who was mentoring me not to be a boring poet.
GROSS: (Laughter).
SMITH: And I said, I want to do something special, and Sam said, well, you have these - and I said, well, I could sing a cappella songs. And he said, well, do you know anybody that plays guitar? And I said, well, this fella, Lenny Kaye, mentioned he played a little guitar. And I don't know how I would have evolved because the thing about Lenny that made him different from everyone else is Lenny was there to magnify my ideas. He really - I'm not saying he was totally selfless. He had a sense of himself, but he was completely there for me.
GROSS: You were saying that you didn't have - you know, you didn't think of yourself as a singer, per se, that your friends had better voices than you did. But you created this new style, really, that was a combination of poetry and music. It wasn't about having, like, a perfect singer's voice. It was the style that you performed and the personality that you put into it, the kind of defiance that you had in some songs, the energy. Would you talk about what you felt you were doing early on that was different from what you'd seen other people do?
SMITH: I think my perception of myself was really as a performer and a communicator. My first album, "Horses" - my mission and the collective band mission was really on one level to merge poetry and rock 'n' roll, but more humanistically to reach out to other disenfranchised people. You know, I - we - in 1975, the, you know, young homosexual kids were being disowned by their families. You know, kids like me, who were a little weird or a little different, were often persecuted in their small towns. And it wasn't just, you know, because of sexual persuasion. It was for any reason - for being an artist, for being different, for having political views, for just wanting to be free. And I really recorded the record to connect with these people. And also, in terms of our place in rock 'n' roll, just to create some bridge between our great artists that we had just lost, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison among them, and to create space for what I felt would be the new guard, which I didn't really include myself.
I was really anticipating people or bands like The Clash and the Ramones. I was anticipating in my mind that a new breed would come - Television. A new breed would come, and they would be less materialistic, more bonded with the people and not so glamorous. That's - I didn't - I wasn't thinking so much of music. I wasn't thinking so much of perfection or stardom or - I had this mission and I thought I would do this record and then go back to my writing and my drawing and, you know, return to my - you know, my somewhat abnormal-normal life. But "Horses" took me on a whole different path.
GROSS: Is there a track from "Horses" that particularly illustrates what you were describing as what your mission was?
SMITH: "Birdland."
GROSS: OK.
SMITH: I think "Birdland" because - for various reasons. "Birdland" was an improvisation built on an improvisation. It very - it so much exemplifies the communication of my band, especially between Richard, Lenny and I. And it speaks of this new breed, you know, the new generations who will be dreaming in animation, the new generations that will race across the fields no longer presidents but prophets. That was my - it was like my telegram to the new breed.
GROSS: Oh, let's hear it. This is "Birdland" from Patti Smith's first album, "Horses."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BIRDLAND")
SMITH: (Singing) I am helium raven, and this movie is mine. So he cried out as he stretched the sky, pushing it all out like latex cartoon. Am I all alone in this generation? We'll just be dreaming of animation night and day. It won't let up, won't let up. And I see them coming in. Oh, I couldn't hear them before, but I hear 'em now. It's a radar scope in all silver and all platinum lights, moving in like black ships, they were moving in, streams of them. And he put up his hands and he said, it's me, it's me. I'll give you my eyes. Take me up. Oh, now, please take me up.
GROSS: Robert Mapplethorpe did the very iconic photograph for the cover of "Horses." What impact do you think that photo had on how people perceived you?
SMITH: Well, I - you know, I don't know. I know people really liked it. I know the record company didn't.
GROSS: They didn't? That's such a great photo. Why didn't the record company like it?
SMITH: 'Cause my hair was messy, because, you know, it just - it was a little incomprehensible to them at the time. But I fought for it, and they did try to airbrush my hair, but I made sure that was fixed. People were very upset constantly about my appearance when I was young. I don't know what it was. You know, they just - it was very hard for them to factor. But I've always had that problem.
Even as a child, you know, I used to go the beach when I was a little kid and just want to wear my dungarees and my flannel shirt, and the whole time people would be, why are you wearing that? Why don't you get a bathing suit? You know, why - it's like leave me alone. It's just like, I'm not bothering you. Why are you worried about, you know, what I look like? You know, it's just I'm not trying to bother anybody.
But people loved the photograph. The people on the streets loved the photograph and it gave Robert some instant attention. I think it was his - you know, the - where he - it really helped, you know, launch his work into the public consciousness. And so we were both very happy about that.
And the funniest thing and sort of the sweetest thing was when I started performing after the record came out, I would go to clubs anywhere. It could be Denmark. It could be in Youngstown, Ohio. And I would come on stage, and at least half of the kids had white shirts and black ties on.
GROSS: (Laughter).
SMITH: It was kind of cool. We were all - we all had suddenly turned Catholic.
BIANCULLI: Patti Smith speaking with Terry Gross in 2010. There's a new 50th anniversary edition of her debut album, "Horses," now out on Legacy Recordings. She also has a new memoir titled "Bread Of Angels." Coming up, we remember actress Diane Ladd, who died Monday at the age of 89. This is FRESH AIR. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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