Patti Has The Power
It is August 1996 and I'm stalking Patti Smith. She's playing two nights at the Shepherd's Bush Empire in London, and I'm keen to get an interview for the NME. But Patti isn't keen on PR schedules or regular promotions. She'll talk if she wants to but not when her neck is hurting her - a legacy of the injury that she suffered when she fell off a stage in Tampa Florida, 1977. According to mythology, Patti had been taunting God back then, cussing him out, and that life-threatening fall was his response.
Instead, I get into a conversation with her guitarist. He's not any old musician though. This is Lenny Kaye, who was an insightful rock journalist before he took up with Patti, playing on all those infernal gigs at CBGBs and featuring on 'Horses' and the other fierce records. He also compiled the 'Nuggets' collection, which made a perceptible change in music history. Lenny is a top fella and the next night, he makes the introduction. So I'm interviewing Patti and suddenly this film camera appears. They're making a documentary. Would it be OK if they covered the interview? Oh, go on then.
"Hey Belfast!" she shouts, remembering me from the previous day. Patti has just released the 'Gone Again' album, which is wreathed in death. She's mourning her husband Fred 'Sonic' Smith and her old artist-lover Robert Mapplethorpe. She's also been touched by the passing of Kurt Cobain and so she speaks eloquently about all these things. And in the middle of all this she wants to know about the Irish situation. I try my best to explain the changing times and she nods keenly. Finally she signs my book of her poetry, 'The Coral Sea', a tribute to Mapplethorpe. "Blessings on your family and your country," she writes. That's good enough for me.
That night, she plays 'People Have The Power', twice. I've rarely heard anything so inspirational. Which is one reason why I'll be at the QFT in Belfast pretty soon, checking out the Patti documentary film, 'Dream Of Life'. Thankfully, my rather feeble interview never made the edit. I was utterly out of my class.
Comment number 1.
At 15:37 21st Jan 2009, ianmctear wrote:I went to the film with high hopes but in the end it was rather frustrating. I was eventually reconciled to the overlapping storytelling technique - but would like to have heard other voices apart from Patti. Although it was a little long and a little heavy on myth you can forgive Patti anything when you hear the music.
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Comment number 2.
At 12:51 16th Feb 2009, vashtibunyan wrote:patti came to read poetry in my tiny university once. she was amazing .it was an unforgettable momet. LOVE HER.
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