History Patti Smith Group

Patti Smith Group was a rock band formed by singer Patti Smith in 1974.

By 1974 Patti Smith was performing rock music herself, initially with guitarist and rock archivist Lenny Kaye, and later with a full band comprising Kaye, Ivan Kral on bass, Jay Dee Daugherty on drums and Richard Sohl, on piano. Ivan Kral was a refugee from Czechoslovakia, fleeing in 1968 after the fall of Alexander Dubček. Financed by Robert Mapplethorpe, the band recorded a first single, "Hey Joe" / "Piss Factory", in 1974. The A-side was a version of the rock standard with the addition of a spoken word piece about fugitive heiress Patty Hearst ("Patty Hearst, you're standing there in front of the Symbionese Liberation Army flag with your legs spread, I was wondering were you gettin' it every night from a black revolutionary man and his women..."). The B-side describes the helpless anger Smith had felt while working on a factory assembly line and the salvation she discovered in the form of a shoplifted book, the 19th century French poet Arthur Rimbaud's Illuminations.

Patti Smith Group was signed by Clive Davis of Arista Records, and 1975 saw the release of Smith's first album "Horses", produced by John Cale amidst some tension. The album fused punk rock and spoken poetry and begins with a cover of Van Morrison's "Gloria", and Smith's opening words: "Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine." The austere cover photograph by Robert Mapplethorpe has become one of rock's classic images. As Patti Smith Group toured the United States and Europe, punk's popularity grew. The rawer sound of the group's second album, "Radio Ethiopia", reflected this. Considerably less accessible than Horses, Radio Ethiopia received poor reviews. However, several of its songs have stood the test of time, and Smith still performs them regularly in concert. On January 23, 1977, while touring in support of the record, Smith accidentally danced off a high stage in Tampa, Florida and fell 15 feet into a concrete orchestra pit, breaking several neck vertebrae. The injury required a period of rest and an intensive round of physical therapy, during which time she was able to reassess, re-energize and reorganize her life. Patti Smith Group produced two further albums before the end of the 1970s. "Easter" (1978) was her most commercially successful record, containing single "Because the Night" co-written with Bruce Springsteen. "Wave" (1979) was less successful, although songs "Frederick" and "Dancing Barefoot" both received commercial airplay.

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