This is Patti Smith

Patti Smith has been hailed as the Godmother of Punk, the people’s poet, a defining voice of her generation. She’s been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. She won a National Book Award for Just Kids. Last fall, she published her most intimate memoir to date, Bread of Angels.

Act I: In Sickness and In Health

We discuss Patti’s early creative awakenings in South Jersey (5:00), discovering Bob Dylan at sixteen (15:50), and the summer job that inspired her infamous poem, Piss Factory (20:00).

Act II: Coming to New York

Then, we walk through her nomadic years with Robert Mapplethorpe in-and-out-of the Chelsea Hotel (31:30), her run-in with the Rolling Thunder Revue (36:30), the whirlwind of making her debut album Horses (40:00), and why she left it all behind (46:00).

Act III: Curtain Call

To close, she talks about giving voice to those whose time was cut short (50:15), her tireless desire and commitment to evolve as an artist (53:30), and the protests and politics that have shaped some of her best and most urgent work to date (55:40).

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