The Fat Angel Sings

Patti Smith is to perform her classic album “Horses” in full on a tour to mark the album’s 50th anniversary Patti Smith band

Born in 1946 in Chicago and raised in Philadelphia and New Jersey, Patti Smith arrived in New York City in 1967 with dreams of becoming a poet and performing artist. Immersing herself in the city’s vibrant countercultural scene, she quickly became a fixture in the world of underground literature, visual art, and music.

Smith headed the Patti Smith Group — featuring guitarist and music archivist Lenny Kaye, as well as MC5’s Fred “Sonic” Smith — where she released a series of albums that bridged the gap between the art-rock experimentation of the 1960s and the incendiary punk movement that followed.

Her 1975 debut, “Horses“, was a declaration of artistic freedom, mixing Beat-influenced lyricism with snarling delivery. At a time when women in rock were often confined to the roles of glamorous front women or folk singers, Smith carved out space for a new kind of female punk icon: brash, commanding, yet introspective and literary.

Kaye and drummer Daugherty aren’t the only band members backing Smith on the road this November.

Guitarist Jackson Smith as well as keyboardist and bass player Tony Shanahan — who has been performing live with Smith’s band since 1996 — will also join her. In the fall of 1975, Patti Smith gathered her band in Electric Lady Studios in New York City to record her debut album, “Horses”. Released on November 10th by Arista Records, it has come to be regarded as a seminal and landmark recording that continues to have resonance and relevance for succeeding generations of musicians and artists.

“Horses” clarion call was: “three chord rock merged with the power of the word.” A poet and visual artist, Patti had begun improvising her unique blend of song and hallucinatory imagery two years before, appearing on cabaret stages and small clubs with the support of guitarist Kaye and pianist Richard Sohl. She honed her songs in this live setting, allowing them to develop at will, garnering an ever-growing audience within the Manhattan underground. By the time she launched a seven-week residency at the relatively obscure Bowery club, CBGB, in winter of 1975, her band had grown, adding guitarist Ivan Kral and drummer Jay Dee Daugherty. It was during this time that she was signed by Arista president Clive Davis. John Cale was chosen by the band to produce the album, and it was released on November 10th, the death date of one of Patti’s most important influences, the poet Arthur Rimbaud.

Opening with an anthemic declaration of personal responsibility – “Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine” – folded within Van Morrison’s classic “Gloria”, “Horses” was a return to rock’s primal instincts, seeking to awaken the spirit and promise of the music at a time when it seemed as if this sensibility was at risk of being forgotten. The album’s artistic reach took shape in the free-form flights of “Birdland” and “Land,” where the expansive soundscapes of free jazz and propulsive rhythms and incantatory lyrics intermingled to provide an expansive sonic landscape. “Redondo Beach,” “Free Money,” “Kimberly,” and “Break It Up” presented a worldview both idealistic and romantic.

With the album’s final cut, “Elegie,” rock’s past and future were entwined within the “sea of possibilities” that became the present. Infused with poetry, “Horses” is an uncompromising exploration that helped lay the groundwork for what would become known as the upheaval of “punk,” though Smith and her band always attempted to avoid categorization: “beyond race gender baptism mathematics politricks,” as Patti wrote in the liner notes, adding “…as for me I am truly totally ready to go.”

Robert Mapplethorpe’s iconic front cover photograph of Patti with her jacket slung over her shoulder perfectly captured this moment of becoming, and indeed, “Horses” was the beginning of a long musical career that resonates even greater today. 

The last time Smith performed “Horses” live in full was at the 2005 Meltdown Festival in London where she celebrated the record’s 30th anniversary.

At all shows, the Punk Poet Laureaute will perform the eight-track “Horses” — which includes “Gloria,” “Redondo Beach,” “Free Money” among other classics — in full for the first time since 2005 along with guitarist Lenny Kaye and drummer Jay Dee Daugherty, both of whom played on the now 50-year-old record that she describes as a “three-chord rock merged with the power of the word.”

“Please join us to help celebrate the final ride of our irreverent thoroughbred,” the New Jersey native and ’70s New York icon shared in a press release.

As for whether Smith still has “it,” critics seem to think so.

“She’s still passionate, still fiery, still a dynamite live performer,” Park Life DC wrote about a September 2023 Washington, D.C. concert of Smith’s. “She’s all heart, and sometimes she stumbled with a lyric before catching herself, but it’s all part of being so deeply emotionally engaged with her material. If you haven’t seen Patti do her thing, you should make a point of it, because you’re guaranteed to get a great show.”

Playing gigs across the US, UK and Europe, Smith’s band will feature guitarist Lenny Kaye and drummer Jay Dee Daugherty, each of whom played on the original recording. The tour includes two UK dates, at London’s Palladium on 12 and 13 October, with Dublin, Madrid, Bergamo, Brussels, Oslo and Paris also featuring on the European run. The US tour will visit Seattle, Oakland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Boston, Washington DC and Philadelphia.

“Horses” was Smith’s 1975 debut album, and came to be seen as a foundational text in New York’s punk scene, although Smith rejected the term punk, instead describing “Horses” as “three-chord rock merged with the power of the word”. Featuring a portrait by photographer Robert Mapplethorpe on the cover, “Horses” has long been regarded as one of the decade’s great albums, and is included in the National Recording Registry in the US Library of Congress.

“Horses” will also be commemorated with a tribute concert at New York’s Carnegie Hall on 26 March, featuring stars such Michael Stipe, Kim Gordon, the National’s Matt Berninger, Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O and Sharon Van Etten who will perform album tracks backed by a band including the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Flea.

Smith has weathered bouts of ill health in recent years, including on tour. In January she collapsed while on stage in Brazil after experiencing a migraine over several days. In December 2023, she was hospitalised while in Italy and cancelled tour dates there after being told by doctors to rest.

But her live performances remain as spirited and distinctive as ever, with the Guardian’s Alexis Petridis describing a June 2024 concert as “moving, powerful and unexpected, a perfect reminder that, 12 years after her last album, Patti Smith is still in constant motion.”

Horses 50th anniversary tour dates

October

6 Dublin – 3Arena, 8 Madrid – Teatro Real, 10 Bergamo – Chorus Life Arena, 12, 13 London – The Palladium, 15, 16 Brussels – Cirque Royale, 18 Oslo – Sentrum Scene, 20, 21 Paris – L’Olympia