81 Facts About Patti Smith

Patricia Lee Smith was born on December 30,1946 and is an American singer, songwriter, poet, painter, author, and photographer.

In 2005, Patti Smith was named a Commander of the by the French Ministry of Culture.

In November 2010, Patti Smith won the National Book Award for her memoir Just Kids, written to fulfill a promise she made to Robert Mapplethorpe, her longtime partner and friend.

Patti Smith is ranked 47th on Rolling Stone magazine's 100 Greatest Artists of all Time, published in 2010, and was awarded the Polar Music Prize in 2011.

Patti Smith's family is of partially Irish ancestry, and Patti is the eldest of four children, with siblings Linda, Kimberly, and Todd.

When Patti Smith was four, the family moved from Chicago to the Germantown section of Philadelphia, then to Pitman, New Jersey, and finally settled in the Woodbury Gardens section of Deptford Township, New Jersey.

At an early age, Patti Smith was exposed to music, including the albums Shrimp Boats by Harry Belafonte, The Money Tree by Patience and Prudence, and Another Side of Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan's fourth album, released in 1964, which her mother gave her.

In 1964, Patti Smith graduated from Deptford Township High School, and began working in a factory.

Patti Smith briefly attended Glassboro State College, now Rowan University, in Glassboro, New Jersey.

In 1969, Patti Smith went to Paris with her sister, and started busking and doing performance art.

When Patti Smith returned to Manhattan, she lived at the Hotel Chelsea with Robert Mapplethorpe.

In 1969, Patti Smith performed in the one-act play Cowboy Mouth, which she co-wrote with Sam Shepard.

On February 10,1971, Patti Smith, accompanied by Lenny Kaye on electric guitar, opened for Gerard Malanga, which was her first public poetry performance.

Patti Smith was briefly considered as lead singer for Blue Oyster Cult.

In 1973, Patti Smith teamed up again with musician and rock archivist Lenny Kaye, and later added Richard Sohl on piano.

The B-side describes the helpless alienation Patti Smith felt while working on a factory assembly line and the salvation she dreams of achieving by escaping to New York City.

In March 1975, Smith's group, the Patti Smith Group, began a two-month weekend set of shows at CBGB in New York City with the band Television.

The Patti Smith Group was spotted by Clive Davis, who signed them to Arista Records.

Later that year, the Patti Smith Group recorded their debut album, Horses, produced by John Cale amid some tension.

Patti Smith has said that Radio Ethiopia was influenced by the band MC5.

On January 23,1977, while touring in support of Radio Ethiopia, Patti Smith accidentally danced off a high stage in Tampa, Florida, and fell 15-feet onto a concrete orchestra pit, breaking several cervical vertebrae.

In June 1988, Patti Smith released the album Dream of Life, which included the song "People Have the Power".

Patti Smith toured briefly with Bob Dylan in December 1995, which is chronicled in a book of photographs by Stipe.

In 1996, Patti Smith worked with her long-time colleagues to record Gone Again, featuring "About a Boy", a tribute to Kurt Cobain, the former lead singer of Nirvana who died by suicide in 1994.

Patti Smith was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance for two songs, "1959" and "Glitter in Their Eyes".

In 2002, Patti Smith released Land, a two-CD compilation that includes a cover of Prince's "When Doves Cry".

Patti Smith curated the Meltdown festival in London on June 25,2005, in which she performed Horses live in its entirety for the first time.

On September 10,2009, after a week of smaller events and exhibitions in Florence, Patti Smith played an open-air concert at Piazza Santa Croce, commemorating her performance in the same city 30 years earlier.

Patti Smith recorded a cover of Buddy Holly's "Words of Love" for the CD Rave on Buddy Holly, a tribute album tied to Holly's 75th birthday, which was released June 28,2011.

Patti Smith recorded the song "Capitol Letter" for the official soundtrack of the second film of the Hunger Games' series The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.

Also in 2012, Patti Smith recorded a cover of Io come persona by Italian singer-songwriter Giorgio Gaber.

In 2015, Patti Smith wrote "Aqua Teen Dream" to commemorate the series finale of Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

On September 26,2015, Patti Smith performed at the American Museum of Tort Law convocation ceremony.

In 2016, Patti Smith performed "People Have the Power" at Riverside Church in Manhattan to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Democracy Now, where she was joined by Michael Stipe.

On December 10,2016, Patti Smith attended the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony in Stockholm on behalf of Bob Dylan, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, who could not be present due to prior commitments.

In 1994, Patti Smith began devoting time to what she terms "pure photography", a method of capturing still objects without using a flash.

From November 2006 to January 2007, an exhibition called 'Sur les Traces' at Trolley Gallery, London, featured polaroid prints taken by Patti Smith and donated to Trolley to raise awareness and funds for the publication of Double Blind: Lebanon Conflict 2006, a book with photographs by Paolo Pellegrin, a member of Magnum Photos.

Patti Smith participated in the DVD commentary for Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters.

Patti Smith headlined a benefit concert headed by bandmate Tony Shanahan, for Court Tavern in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

In 2011, Patti Smith announced the first museum exhibition of her photography in the US, Camera Solo.

Patti Smith named the project after a sign she saw in the abode of Pope Celestine V, which translates as "a room of one's own", and which Smith felt best described her solitary method of photography.

The exhibition featured artifacts that were everyday items or places of significance to artists Patti Smith admires, including Rimbaud, Charles Baudelaire, John Keats, and William Blake.

Also in 2011, Patti Smith was working on a crime novel set in London.

Also in 2010, Patti Smith made a cameo appearance in Jean-Luc Godard's Film Socialisme, which was first screened at the Cannes Film Festival that year.

In 2017, Patti Smith appeared as herself in Song to Song opposite Rooney Mara and Ryan Gosling, directed by Terrence Malick.

Patti Smith later made an appearance at the Detroit show of U2's The Joshua Tree 2017 tour and performed "Mothers of the Disappeared" with the band.

In January 2019, Patti Smith's photographs were displayed at the Diego Rivera gallery in the San Francisco Art Institute and she performed at The Fillmore in San Francisco.

In 2024, Patti Smith appeared as herself in Turn in the Wound, a documentary by Abel Ferrara about performance, poetry, music and the experience of people at war, focusing on life in Kyiv since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Patti Smith composed the music of the film and read poems by Antonin Artaud, Rene Daumal and Arthur Rimbaud in her own voice.

One of the first musicians to reference Patti Smith was Todd Rundgren.

Stipe sings backing vocals on Patti Smith's "Last Call" and "Glitter in Their Eyes".

In 2012, Patti Smith was awarded an honorary doctorate in fine arts from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.

Patti Smith added that it was through her friends and Pratt professors that she learned many of her own artistic skills.

Canadian country musician Orville Peck cited Patti Smith as having had a big impact on him, stating that Patti Smith's album Horses introduced him to a new and different way to make music.

In November 2020, Patti Smith was set to receive the International Humanities Prize from Washington University in St Louis in November 2020; however, the ceremony was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Also in 2022, Patti Smith was named an Officer of the French Legion of Honor.

In 2023, Patti Smith was nominated for induction to the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

In 1993, Patti Smith contributed "Memorial Tribute " to the AIDS-benefit album No Alternative.

Patti Smith supported Democratic candidate John Kerry in the 2004 election.

In September 2006, Patti Smith premiered two new protest songs in London.

In March 2003, ten days after the murder of Rachel Corrie, Patti Smith appeared in Austin, Texas and performed an anti-war concert, and subsequently wrote "Peaceable Kingdom", a song inspired by and dedicated to Corrie.

In 2015, Patti Smith appeared with Nader, spoke and performed the songs "Wing" and "People Have the Power" during the American Museum of Tort Law convocation ceremony in Winsted, Connecticut.

In 2016, Patti Smith spoke, read poetry, and performed several songs along with her daughter Jesse at Nader's Breaking Through Power conference at DAR Constitution Hall in Washington, DC.

In 2020, Patti Smith contributed signed first-edition copies of her books to the Passages bookshop in Portland, Oregon after the store's valuable first-edition and other books by various authors were stolen in a burglary.

In May 2021, more than 600 musicians, including Patti Smith, added their signature to an open letter calling for a boycott of performances in Israel until the occupation of the Palestinian territories comes to an end.

On February 24,2022, Patti Smith performed at The Capitol Theatre for the first time, saying, "I would be lying if I said I wasn't affected by what is happening in the world" referencing the Russian invasion of Ukraine earlier that day.

Patti Smith was raised a Jehovah's Witness and had a strong religious upbringing and a Biblical education.

Patti Smith says she left organized religion as a teenager because she found it too confining.

Patti Smith called Francis of Assisi "truly the environmentalist saint" and said that despite not being a Catholic, she had hoped for a pope named Francis.

True artists, for Patti Smith, are remote, solitary figures of excellence, wholly dedicated to their art.

In July 2005, Patti Smith was named a Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture.

On March 12,2007, Patti Smith was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Patti Smith dedicated her award to the memory of her late husband, Fred, and performed a cover of The Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter".

In 2011, Patti Smith was one of several Polar Music Prize winners.

In 1967,20-year-old Patti Smith left Glassboro State College and moved to Manhattan, where she began working at Scribner's bookstore with friend and poet Janet Hamill.

Patti Smith used Mapplethorpe's photographs of her as covers for her albums, and she wrote essays for several of his books, including his posthumous Flowers, at his request.

Patti Smith considers Mapplethorpe to be among the most influential and important people in her life.

Patti Smith calls him "the artist of my life" in her book Just Kids, which tells the story of their relationship.

Patti Smith's book and album The Coral Sea is an homage to Mapplethorpe.

In 1979, at approximately age 32, Patti Smith separated from her long-time partner Allen Lanier and met Fred "Sonic" Patti Smith, the former guitar player for Michigan-based rock band MC5 and Sonic's Rendezvous Band.

Shortly afterward, Patti Smith faced the unexpected death of her brother Todd.