It’s Patti Smith‘s birthday and our annual Patti Smith birthday posting (We saluted Lenny Kaye, her band-mate, just a few days earlier). Here’s a wonderful document to start off with, Patti and Lenny’s first performance at The Poetry Project at St Mark’s Church in 1971 (first time electric guitar was heard in those hallowed halls).
Here’s some more recent concert footage (courtesy of You Tube)
Last month, in Kingston, New York:
October, in Leipzig:
Ulm, Germany:
Madison Square Garden:
and last night, it was the first night of a two-night booking at Brooklyn Steel in Brooklyn (second night this evening) – Patti on her birthday playing and celebrating in her home-town (a venerable New York tradition!)
Patti, is here interviewed by Jessica Hopper (in 2019, and again in 2022), for the Chicago Humanities Festival:
Two more recent (2023) interviews:
with Alison Beard
with Hamish McKenzie..
And see also a variety of previous Patti Smith Birthday postings on The Allen Ginsberg Project – here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here
Happy Birthday Patti!