Patti Smith wants her Rock'n'Roll Uncensored

[from In the Know magazine, 1976]
by Kim Garfield


Patti Smith was fuming over the BBC's censorship of her newest single, "My Generation."

"They bleeped all the shits and fucks out of it," complained the new poet-laureate of rock music, to the startled onlookers seated at a nearby table. The restaurant was Sardi's, not exactly a place that's used to serving four-letter words over lunch.

"One of the things we're working on is obliterating censorship from rock and roll," she continued. "And after we take care of that, I want to work on legalizing marijuana . . . in certain places. I'd like to see some Arabic-looking cafes serving hashish, ya know?"

Patti Smith's songs are as bizarre as her conversation. They deal with suicide, cocaine, homosexuality and William Reich, the mad scientist who promised to rescue his son in a UFO after his death in the 1950s.

All of which makes her a prime candidate to become the first off-the-wall rock heroine since Janis Joplin, though the raunchy 5'6" singer-poet looks more like Keith Richard of The Rolling Stones.

She is irked by censorship of any kind and said she went into rock and roll in the first place because "It gives me carte blanche on where to put my music. And as I grow I want my stuff to have everything in it. I want every faggot, grandmother, 5-year-old and Chinaman to be able to listen to it and say . . . 'yeah!'"

Dressed in a black gabardine jacket, jeans and ballet slippers, the 29-year-old former poet- artist doesn't agree with some rock critics who've labeled her "an oddity." On the other hand when she talked about her 11-year-old daughter (whom she gave up for adoption) she referred to the child as "it."

Patti's own childhood was fairly normal. She grew up in a small, rural community in southern New Jersey in a family that devoured books and quoted the Bible. While her mother waited on tables and her father worked in a factory, Patti kept two younger sisters and a brother occupied with fantasies of Martians and ancient Egypt.

"I got to play the ugly duckling in a school play as a kid," she recalled, gyrating in her seat in the same way she comes off on stage. "It was the story of my life. I had big feet and I was real skinny. I mean, the swan had a lousy childhood because nobody took him aside and said, 'Look, kid, you're ugly now, but someday you're going to grow into this incredibly beautiful swan.' It gave me a lesson . . . of hope."

She packed her hope and headed for Manhattan eight years ago; eventually two books of poetry were published and she gave readings in the smoke-filled coffee houses of Greenwich village, accompanied by a guitar. The readings became singings and she added a bassist, drummer and piano player.

Her debut album, Horses, generated enormous enthusiasm among the media, fellow musicians and the underground cult and her concerts continue to draw SRO crowds.

And while her punkish charisma still draws comparison to Dylan, Jagger and Bruce Springsteen, she is also recognized as a full-blown original.

        -KIM GARFIELD



Copyright © ?? 1976



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