Patti Smith

Patti Smith, a singer, musician, poet, and activist, was born in Chicago in December 1946. Influenced by Bob Dylan, Arthur Rimbaud, existentialism, and Beat literature, she moved to New York in 1967 and became involved with the city's underground art circles. She engaged in poetry and theater (co-writing a play with Sam Shepard) and began developing the idea of combining poetry with rock and roll music. To this end, in 1974, she formed the Patti Smith Group in collaboration with guitarist Lenny Kaye. Patti Smith was closely associated with the famous photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, who captured her on the cover of her first album, "Horses" (1975), which many music critics consider the first punk rock album of the 1970s and is included in most authoritative lists of the 100 greatest albums of all time. This was followed by a series of significant albums that established her as one of the most important performers, composers, and lyricists in history: "Radio Ethiopia" (1976), "Easter" (1978), "Wave" (1979). In 1980, she moved to Detroit, where she married Fred "Sonic" Smith, former guitarist of the MC5, with whom she had two children. For a long period, she devoted herself to her family and withdrew from recording. However, she returned to live performances and recordings in 1988 with the album "Dream of Life." Since then, she has released six more albums, the latest being "Banga" (2012). Patti Smith's first poetry collection, titled "Seventh Heaven," was published in 1972, followed by collections "Witt" (1973), "Babel" (1978), "Woolgathering" (1992), "The Coral Sea" (1996), "Auguries of Innocence" (2005). Her poetic work has also been published in collected editions. In 2010, her autobiographical work "Just Kids" was published, followed by another autobiographical book, "M Train," in 2015. In addition to her poetic and recording work, Patti Smith has also successfully engaged in painting. In 1973, she held her first solo exhibition at the Gotham Book Mart in New York. Her works from the exhibition "Strange Messenger" were published in a book of the same name in 2003. In 2005, the French Ministry of Culture honored Patti Smith by awarding her the title of Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres, the highest artistic distinction in France. In 2007, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.