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Lee Smith Biography & Facts

Patricia Lee Smith (born December 30, 1946) is an American singer, songwriter, poet, painter, and author whose 1975 debut album Horses made her an influential member of the New York City-based punk rock movement. Smith has fused rock and poetry in her work. In 1978, her most widely known song, "Because the Night", co-written with Bruce Springsteen, reached 13th on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and fifth on the UK Singles Chart. In 2005, Smith was named a Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture. In 2007, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In November 2010, Smith won the National Book Award for her memoir Just Kids, written to fulfill a promise she made to Robert Mapplethorpe, her longtime partner. She is ranked 47th on Rolling Stone magazine's 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, published in 2010, and was awarded the Polar Music Prize in 2011. Early life and education Smith was born on December 30, 1946, at Grant Hospital in the Lincoln Park section of Chicago, to Beverly Smith, a jazz singer turned waitress, and Grant Smith, a Honeywell machinist. The family was of part Irish ancestry, and Patti was the eldest of four children, with siblings Linda, Kimberly, and Todd. When Smith was four, the family moved from Chicago to the Germantown section of Philadelphia, then to Pitman, New Jersey, and finally settled in the Woodbury Gardens section of Deptford Township, New Jersey. At an early age, Smith was exposed to music, including the albums Shrimp Boats by Harry Belafonte, The Money Tree by Patience and Prudence, and Another Side of Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan's fourth album, released in 1964, which her mother gave her. In 1964, Smith graduated from Deptford Township High School, and began working in a factory. She briefly attended Glassboro State College, now Rowan University, in Glassboro, New Jersey. Career Robert Mapplethorpe In 1967, Smith left Glassboro State College, and moved to Manhattan, where she began working at a bookstore with friend and poet Janet Hamill. There she met photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, with whom she began an intense romantic relationship, which was tumultuous as the pair struggled with poverty and Mapplethorpe's sexuality. Smith used Mapplethorpe's photographs of her as covers for her albums, and she wrote essays for several of his books, including his posthumous Flowers, at his request. The two remained friends until Mapplethorpe's death in 1989. Smith considers Mapplethorpe to be among the most influential and important people in her life. She calls him "the artist of my life" in her book Just Kids, which tells the story of their relationship. Her book and album The Coral Sea is an homage to Mapplethorpe. Early performances In 1969, Smith went to Paris with her sister, and started busking and doing performance art. When Smith returned to Manhattan, she lived at the Hotel Chelsea with Mapplethorpe. They frequented Max's Kansas City on Park Avenue, and Smith provided the spoken word soundtrack for Sandy Daley's art film Robert Having His Nipple Pierced, starring Mapplethorpe. The same year, Smith appeared with Jayne County in Jackie Curtis's play Femme Fatale. She also starred in Anthony Ingrassia's play Island. As a member of the Poetry Project, she spent the early 1970s painting, writing, and performing. In 1969, Smith also performed in the one-act play Cowboy Mouth, which she co-wrote with Sam Shepard. The published play's notes call for "a man who looks like a coyote and a woman who looks like a crow". She wrote several poems about Shepard and her relationship with him, including "for sam shepard" and "Sam Shepard: 9 Random Years (7 + 2)", that were published in Angel City, Curse of the Starving Class & Other Plays (1976). On February 10, 1971, Smith, accompanied by Lenny Kaye on electric guitar, opening for Gerard Malanga, which was her first public poetry performance. Smith was briefly considered as lead singer for Blue Öyster Cult. She contributed lyrics to several Blue Öyster Cult songs, including "Debbie Denise", which was inspired by her poems "In Remembrance of Debbie Denise", "Baby Ice Dog", "Career of Evil", "Fire of Unknown Origin", "The Revenge of Vera Gemini", on which she performs duet vocals, and "Shooting Shark". At the time, she was romantically involved with Allen Lanier, Blue Öyster Cult's keyboardist. During these years, Smith was also a rock music journalist, writing periodically for Rolling Stone and Creem. The Patti Smith Group In 1973, Smith teamed up again with musician and rock archivist Lenny Kaye, and later added Richard Sohl on piano. The trio developed into a full band with the addition of Ivan Král on guitar and bass and Jay Dee Daugherty on drums. Kral was a refugee from Czechoslovakia who had moved to the US in 1966 with his parents, who were both diplomats. After the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, Kral decided not to return. Financed by Sam Wagstaff, the band recorded their 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 Patty Hearst, a fugitive heiress. The B-side describes the helpless alienation Smith felt while working on a factory assembly line and the salvation she dreams of achieving by escaping to New York City. In a 1996 interview on artistic influences during her younger years, Smith said, "I had devoted so much of my girlish daydreams to Rimbaud. Rimbaud was like my boyfriend." Later the same year, she performed "I Wake Up Screaming", a poem, on The Whole Thing Started with Rock & Roll Now It's Out of Control, an album by The Doors' Ray Manzarek. Albums In March 1975, Smith's group, the Patti Smith Group, began a two-month weekend set of shows at CBGB in New York City with the band Television. The Patti Smith Group was spotted by Clive Davis, who signed them to Arista Records. Later that year, the Patti Smith Group recorded their debut album, Horses, produced by John Cale amid 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", an excerpt from "Oath", one of Smith's early poems. The austere cover photograph by Mapplethorpe has become one of rock's classic images. As punk rock grew in popularity, the Patti Smith Group toured the U.S. and Europe. The rawer sound of the group's second album, Radio Ethiopia, reflected this. Considerably less accessible than Horses, Radio Ethiopia initially received poor reviews. However, several of its songs have stood the test of time, and Smith still performs them live. She has said that Radio Ethiopia was influenced by the band MC5. On January 23, 1977, while touring in support of Radio Ethiopia, Smith accidentally danced off a high stage in Tampa, Florida, and fell 15-feet onto a concrete orchestra pit, breaking several cervical vertebrae. T.... Discover the Lee Smith popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Lee Smith books.