147-514: Patricia Lee Smith (born December 30, 1946) is an American singer, songwriter, poet, painter, author and photographer. Her 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 number 13 on
294-428: A 1976 interview with Rolling Stone , Smith described her experience: My picking John was about as arbitrary as picking Rimbaud . I saw the cover of Illuminations with Rimbaud's face, y'know, he looked so cool, just like Bob Dylan . So Rimbaud became my favorite poet. I looked at the cover of Fear and I said, 'Now there's a set of cheekbones.' In my mind I picked him because his records sounded good. But I hired
441-399: A May 2017 appearance on Castellano's "Band Geek" podcast, Bloom confirmed that there were tentative plans to release a new album in 2018 and that the band was currently considering offers from multiple record labels. He also stated that former bassist Danny Miranda would be playing with the band for the remainder of the year due to Sulton's prior touring commitments with Todd Rundgren . During
588-504: A Stony Brook University student, provided the band with lyrics from their early days up through their most recent studio album. In 1968, the band moved in together at their first house in the Thomaston area of Great Neck, New York . The band recorded an album's worth of material for Elektra Records in 1968. Braunstein played his final show as Soft White Underbelly's lead singer in the spring of 1969. His departure led Elektra to shelve
735-416: A Thousand Dances" as the most striking moments on the record, finding that she had rendered the songs "far more expansive than their original creators could have dreamed." In Creem , Lester Bangs wrote that Smith's music "in its ultimate moments touches deep wellsprings of emotion that extremely few artists in rock or anywhere else are capable of reaching", and declared that with "her wealth of promise and
882-802: A benefit concert headed by bandmate Tony Shanahan, for Court Tavern in New Brunswick, New Jersey . Smith's set included "Gloria", "Because the Night", and "People Have the Power". In 2011, Smith announced the first museum exhibition of her photography in the U.S., Camera Solo . She named the project after a sign she saw in the abode of Pope Celestine V , which translates as "a room of one's own", and which Smith felt best described her solitary method of photography. The exhibition featured artifacts that were everyday items or places of significance to artists Smith admires, including Rimbaud , Charles Baudelaire , John Keats , and William Blake . In February 2012, she
1029-792: A cameo appearance in Jean-Luc Godard 's Film Socialisme , which was first screened at the Cannes Film Festival that year. In 2017, Smith appeared as herself in Song to Song opposite Rooney Mara and Ryan Gosling , directed by Terrence Malick . She later made an appearance at the Detroit show of U2's The Joshua Tree 2017 tour and performed "Mothers of the Disappeared" with the band. In 2018, Smith's concert-documentary film Horses: Patti Smith and her Band , premiered at
1176-620: 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
1323-886: A factory. She briefly attended Glassboro State College, now Rowan University , in Glassboro, New Jersey . 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 Robert 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
1470-502: A few more temporary band names, including the Santos Sisters, the band settled on Blue Öyster Cult in 1971 (see below for its origin). New York City producer/composer and jingle writer David Lucas saw the band perform and took them into his Warehouse Recording Studio and produced four demos, with which Pearlman was able to get the renamed band another audition with Columbia Records. Clive Davis liked what he heard, and signed
1617-602: A few tracks feature earlier bassist Jon Rogers and one track features Rondinelli on drums, who had joined the band near the end of the recording. Curse of the Hidden Mirror features Miranda and Rondinelli as the rhythm section, and the pair contributed to the songwriting as well. Neither album sold well. In 2001, Sony/Columbia's reissue arm, Legacy Records issued expanded versions of the first four Blue Öyster Cult studio albums, including some previously unreleased demos and outtakes from album sessions, live recordings (from
SECTION 10
#17327656814371764-553: A five-star review of Horses , naming it "the record of the year" and "one of the most stunning, commanding, engrossing platters to come down the turnpike since John Lennon 's Plastic Ono Band ". NME critic Charles Shaar Murray called it "an album in a thousand" and "an important album in terms of what rock can encompass without losing its identity as a musical form, in that it introduces an artist of greater vision than has been seen in rock for far too long." English television host and future Factory Records co-founder Tony Wilson
1911-424: 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",
2058-427: A jam session consisting of fellow Stony Brook classmate Donald Roeser and his friends. Pearlman offered to become the band's manager and creative partner, to which the band agreed. The band's original lineup consisted of guitarist Roeser, drummer Albert Bouchard, keyboardist Allen Lanier, Les Braunstein and bassist Andrew Winters. In October 1967, the band made their debut performance as Steve Noonan's backing band at
2205-569: A keyboardist and with only three remaining original members. This incarnation of the band would sometimes be referred to as '3ÖC' by fans, which is a pun on the number of original members left. Blue Öyster Cult hired drummer Jimmy Wilcox and keyboardist Tommy Zvoncheck to finish the album Club Ninja , which was poorly received, with only "Dancin' in the Ruins," one of several songs on the record written entirely by outside songwriters, enjoying minimal success on radio and MTV . The best-known original on
2352-448: A landmark for both punk and its offshoot genre new wave , inspiring "a raw, almost amateurish energy for the former and critical, engaging reflexivity for the latter", according to Chris Smith in his book 101 Albums That Changed Popular Music (2009). Philip Shaw stated that the album "created the template" for subsequent rock music of an "intelligent and self-conscious, yet visceral and exciting" sensibility, identifying its influence on
2499-404: A long time since BÖC's last studio album. Recording with Danny, Richie and Jules should be a great experience as we've been touring together for years, and Buck and I look forward to including them in the creative and recording process," said Bloom. "The current band is GREAT and has never been recorded other than live, so we feel now's the time for new songs to be written and recorded. About half of
2646-614: 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
2793-499: A more humanistic perspective, she had also aimed "to reach out to other disenfranchised people" like herself. Smith said, "I was consciously trying to make a record that would make a certain type of person not feel alone. People who were like me, different ... I wasn't targeting the whole world. I wasn't trying to make a hit record." Arista arranged for Smith to begin recording Horses in August 1975. Smith at first suggested that
2940-612: A poem, on The Whole Thing Started with Rock & Roll Now It's Out of Control , an album by The Doors ' Ray Manzarek . 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
3087-597: A quarrel with the song's narrator, was written by Smith after an incident involving her and her sister Linda. The two had gotten into a heated argument, prompting Linda to leave their shared apartment and not return until the next day. "Kimberly" is a dedication to its namesake, Smith's younger sister, and finds the singer recounting a childhood memory of holding Kimberly in her arms during a lightning storm. In " Free Money ", Smith describes growing up in poverty in New Jersey and recalls her mother fantasizing about winning
SECTION 20
#17327656814373234-517: A seminal moment in the reversal of the female gaze . Smith is looking at you, and could care less [ sic ] what you think about looking at her. That was radical for a woman in 1975. It is still radical today." Smith herself stated that she had not intended to make a "big statement" with the cover, which she said simply reflected the way she dressed. "I wasn't thinking that I was going to break any boundaries. I just like dressing like Baudelaire," she remarked in 1996. On September 18, 1975,
3381-543: A seminal recording in the history of punk and later rock movements, Horses has appeared in numerous lists of the greatest albums of all time. In 2009, it was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation into the National Recording Registry as a "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" work. By 1975, Patti Smith and her band had established themselves as a popular act within
3528-480: A seven-album recording deal with Arista, and she signed to the label in April 1975. Having written poetry for several years before becoming a musician, and noting that she entered music simply because she thought "the presentation of poetry wasn't vibrant enough", Smith said that her original goal for her debut album was to merge poetry and rock music, which then developed into a "larger mission" to "pump blood back into
3675-414: A trend that would continue with their next few albums. The band's third album, Secret Treaties (1974), received positive reviews, featuring songs such as "Career of Evil" (co-written by Patti Smith), "Dominance and Submission" and " Astronomy ". As a result of constant touring, the band was now capable of headlining shows. The album continued their upward sales trend, and would eventually go gold. As
3822-456: Is a kind of retelling of Moorcock's epic Elric of Melniboné saga. The band also did a co-headlining tour with Black Sabbath in support of the album, calling the tour " Black and Blue ". Birch produced the band's next album as well, Fire of Unknown Origin (1981), which peaked at number 24 on the Billboard 200 , becoming the band's highest-charting album. The biggest hit on this album was
3969-446: Is as potent, heady and uncompromising as she has ever gotten, and with Smith's storied history as a musical maverick, that's saying plenty." Metacritic awarded the album a score of 81, indicating "universal acclaim". Also in 2012, Smith recorded a cover of Io come persona by Italian singer-songwriter Giorgio Gaber . In 2015, Smith wrote "Aqua Teen Dream" to commemorate the series finale of Aqua Teen Hunger Force . The vocal track
4116-517: Is chronicled in a book of photographs by Stipe. In 1996, Smith worked with her long-time colleagues to record Gone Again , featuring "About a Boy", a tribute to Kurt Cobain , the former lead singer of Nirvana who died by suicide in 1994. The same year, she collaborated with Stipe on " E-Bow the Letter ", a song on R.E.M.'s New Adventures in Hi-Fi , which she performed live with the band. After
4263-527: 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. 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 . Her family is of partially Irish ancestry, and Patti is
4410-792: The Billboard Hot 100 chart and number five 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
4557-655: The Live 72 EP), and post- St. Cecilia tunes from the Stalk-Forrest Group era. Another live record and DVD A Long Day's Night followed in 2002, both drawn from one concert in Chicago. This album also featured the Bloom, Roeser, Lanier, Miranda, Rondinelli lineup. Although the band's lineup had remained stable from 1997 to 2004, they began to experience personnel changes again in 2004. Rondinelli left in 2004, and
Patti Smith - Misplaced Pages Continue
4704-569: The Royal Canadian Mounted Police and a rewrite of "I'm on the Lamb But I Ain't No Sheep" from their debut album, and also a reference to the novel of the same name by Stendhal ), "Hot Rails to Hell" and "Baby Ice Dog", the first of the band's many collaborations with Patti Smith . It featured a harder-rocking approach than before, although the band's songs were also growing more complex. The album outsold its predecessor,
4851-577: The Stony Brook University Gymnasium , a gig booked by Pearlman. The band's name came from Winston Churchill 's description of Italy as "the soft underbelly of the Axis ." Pearlman was important to the band – he was able to get them gigs and recording contracts with Elektra and Columbia , and he provided them with his poetry for use as lyrics for many of their songs, including "Astronomy." Writer Richard Meltzer, also
4998-463: The alternative rock , indie rock , and grunge movements that followed the punk era. Variety critic David Sprague further noted that " Horses —which became the first major-label punk-rock album when Arista unleashed it in 1975—not only helped spread the gospel of Bowery art-punk around the world, it set the tone for smart, unbending female rockers of generations to come." Various musicians have credited Horses as an influence. Viv Albertine of
5145-786: The avant-garde , with the music showcasing the band's free jazz -inspired interplay and improvisation, while still remaining "firmly rooted in primal three-chord rock & roll." He called Horses "essentially the first art punk album." Smith and her band's musical improvisation differentiated them from most of their punk contemporaries, whose songs rarely diverged from straightforward three-chord structures. Throughout Horses , they also tempered their punk sound with elements of other musical styles, balancing more conventional rock songs with excursions into reggae (" Redondo Beach ") and jazz ("Birdland"). Fiona Sturges of The Guardian described Smith's lyrics on Horses as being steeped in "intricate phrasing and imagery" that "deliberately blurred
5292-584: The digitally remastered version of the original 1975 album, along with the bonus track "My Generation", on the first disc. For the release, the live set was recorded by Emery Dobyns and mixed by Dobyns and Shanahan. The original album has also been reissued in remastered form several other times, including on June 18, 1996 (both as a standalone CD and as part of the CD box set The Patti Smith Masters ), and on April 21, 2012, on LP for that year's Record Store Day celebration. Notes Credits are adapted from
5439-400: The lottery . Other songs were penned by Smith about notable public figures. "Birdland" was inspired by A Book of Dreams , a 1973 memoir of Austrian psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich by his son Peter, and revolves around a narrative in which Peter, at his father's funeral, imagines leaving on a UFO piloted by his father's spirit. "Break It Up" was written about Jim Morrison , lead singer of
5586-407: The music video format, and their videos received heavy rotation on MTV in its early period. Blue Öyster Cult continued to make studio albums and tour throughout the 1980s, although their popularity had declined such that they were dropped from their longtime label CBS/Columbia Records , following the commercial failure of their eleventh studio album Imaginos (1988). Other than contributing to
5733-423: The musical improvisation that typified the band's live act. Allen Lanier of Blue Öyster Cult and Tom Verlaine of Television participated in the recording sessions as guest musicians, performing on the songs "Elegie" and "Break It Up", respectively. Cale had also wished to augment the band's playing on certain songs with strings , but Smith vehemently opposed this idea. Lanier, who was Smith's boyfriend at
5880-399: The soundtrack of the 1992 film Bad Channels and an album of re-recorded material, Cult Classic , in 1994, the band continued as a live act until releasing their first studio album of original material in ten years, Heaven Forbid (1998). The lackluster sales of Curse of the Hidden Mirror (2001) led to another hiatus from studio recording, but they continued performing live within
6027-467: The "stupendous, truly exciting" performance was met with a highly ecstatic response from the Arista executives in attendance. Horses was released on November 10, 1975. Smith had originally requested for the album to be issued on October 20, the birthday of Arthur Rimbaud, but due to a shortage of vinyl , the release date was postponed, in what Smith described as a "magical" coincidence, to November 10,
Patti Smith - Misplaced Pages Continue
6174-475: The 'Albert Returns' Tour. This arrangement was only temporary and caused more tensions between the band and Bouchard, since he had thought he would be staying on permanently, which was not the case. The band had intended to use him only as a fill-in until another drummer could come on board, which resulted in Bouchard's leaving after the tour. Allen Lanier also quit the band shortly thereafter, leaving them without
6321-576: The 1980s, Patti lived with her family in St. Clair Shores, Michigan , and was semi-retired from music. She ultimately moved back to New York City. In June 1988, Smith released the album Dream of Life , which included the song " People Have the Power ". Michael Stipe of R.E.M. and Allen Ginsberg , who she had known since her early years in New York City, urged her return to live music and touring. She toured briefly with Bob Dylan in December 1995, which
6468-603: The 2018 Tribeca Film Festival . In addition, Smith narrated Darren Aronofsky 's VR experience Spheres: Songs of Spacetime along with Millie Bobby Brown and Jessica Chastain . In January 2019, Smith's photographs were displayed at the Diego Rivera gallery in the San Francisco Art Institute and she performed at The Fillmore in San Francisco. Horses (album) Horses is
6615-748: The 20th anniversary of Democracy Now , where she was joined by Michael Stipe . On December 10, 2016, Smith attended the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony in Stockholm on behalf of Bob Dylan , winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature , who could not be present due to prior commitments. After the official presentation speech for the literary prize by Horace Engdahl , the perpetual secretary of the Swedish Academy , Smith sang
6762-460: The 40th anniversary of Blue Öyster Cult, the then-current incarnation of the band reunited for the first time in 25 years with other original members Joe and Albert Bouchard and Allen Lanier as guests for a special event in New York. Founding keyboardist/guitarist Allen Lanier died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease on August 14, 2013. In 2016, Albert Bouchard played again as guest with
6909-571: The British music press, Horses had some detractors. Street Life reviewer Angus MacKinnon found that the album's minimalist sound merely reflected Smith and her band's musical incompetence. Steve Lake derided the album in Melody Maker as an embodiment of "precisely what's wrong with rock and roll right now", panning it as "completely contrived 'amateurism'" with a "'so bad it's good' aesthetic". Conversely, Jonh Ingham of Sounds penned
7056-538: The Doors ; its lyrics are based on Smith's recollection of her visit to Morrison's grave in Père Lachaise Cemetery , as well as a dream in which she witnessed a winged Morrison stuck to a marble slab, trying and eventually succeeding in breaking free from the stone. "Elegie" is a requiem for rock musician Jimi Hendrix and quotes a line from his 1968 song " 1983... (A Merman I Should Turn to Be) ". It
7203-663: The Dylan song " A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall ". She missung one verse, singing, "I saw the babe that was just bleedin'," and was momentarily unable to continue. After a brief apology, saying that she was nervous, she resumed the song and earned jubilant applause at its end. In 1994, Smith began devoting time to what she terms "pure photography", a method of capturing still objects without using a flash. From November 2006 to January 2007, an exhibition called 'Sur les Traces' at Trolley Gallery , London, featured polaroid prints taken by Smith and donated to Trolley to raise awareness and funds for
7350-762: The Hidden Mirror and The Symbol Remains marks the longest gap between studio albums in Blue Öyster Cult's career. The album was released to a positive critical reception, with tracks such as "Box In My Head" and "The Alchemist" receiving high praise. In October 2022, during their European headlining tour, Blue Öyster Cult supported Deep Purple at five arena shows in the United Kingdom. On April 12, 2024, Blue Öyster Cult released their sixteenth and final studio album Ghost Stories , which includes both reimagined tracks and "lost gems" from between 1978 and 2016, as well as studio versions of their covers of MC5 's " Kick Out
7497-566: The Jams " and The Animals ' " We Gotta Get Out of This Place .". Blue Öyster Cult is usually described as a hard rock band, albeit one with their own tongue-in-cheek style. Their music has also been described as heavy metal , psychedelic rock , occult rock , acid rock , and progressive rock . They have also been recognized for helping pioneer genres such as stoner metal . The band has also experimented with additional genres on specific albums, such as on Mirrors . They have acknowledged
SECTION 50
#17327656814377644-543: The New York City underground rock music scene through their frequent live performances in the previous year. A highly attended two-month residency at the New York City club CBGB with the band Television in early 1975 further increased Smith's profile. The hype surrounding the residency brought Smith to the attention of music industry executive Clive Davis , who was scouting for artists to sign to his recently launched label Arista Records . After being impressed by one of her live performances at CBGB, Davis offered Smith
7791-553: The Slits said that the album "absolutely and completely changed" her life, adding: "Us girls never stood in front of a mirror posing as if we had a guitar because we had no role models. So, when Patti Smith came along, it was huge. She was groundbreakingly different." Siouxsie and the Banshees frontwoman Siouxsie Sioux , naming "Land" as a recording she considered particularly influential on her, remarked that "apart from Nico , Patti
7938-637: The Stars", and "Then Came the Last Days of May". By this time, the band's sound had become more oriented toward hard rock, but songs like "She's As Beautiful As a Foot" and "Redeemed" also showed a strong element of the band's psychedelic roots. Pearlman wanted the group to be the American answer to Black Sabbath . All of the band members except for Allen Lanier sang lead, a pattern that would continue on many subsequent albums, although lead singer Eric Bloom sang
8085-638: The Starving Class & Other Plays (1976) . On February 10, 1971, Smith, accompanied by Lenny Kaye on electric guitar, opened 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
8232-500: The Top 40 hit "Burnin' for You," a song Roeser had written with a Richard Meltzer lyric. He had intended to use it on his solo album, Flat Out (1982), but he was convinced to use it on the Blue Öyster Cult album instead. The revival of the band's heavier sound continued, albeit with fairly heavy use of synthesizers and some noticeable New Wave influence on a few tracks. It contained other fan favorites such as " Joan Crawford " (inspired by
8379-660: The US and made their network television debut performing on the NBC variety show Saturday Night Live , then traveled to Europe for an appearance on the BBC Two music show The Old Grey Whistle Test and a short tour. "Gloria" was released as a single in April 1976. Smith's cover of the Who 's " My Generation ", performed live in Cleveland, served as the single's B-side . Horses
8526-557: The United States. The band's fusion of hard rock with psychedelia , and penchant for occult , fantastical and tongue-in-cheek lyrics, had a major influence on heavy metal music . They developed a cult following and, while achieving mainstream hits like " (Don't Fear) The Reaper " (1976) and " Burnin' for You " (1981), their commercial success was limited. Both songs, and others such as " Godzilla " (1977), remain classic rock radio staples. The band were early adopters of
8673-418: The album and finding it "brilliant—not so much her music but her delivery, words, and her articulation. Her honesty." KT Tunstall wrote her hit single " Suddenly I See " (2004) about how she felt inspired to embrace her musical ambitions after seeing Smith on the cover of Horses . Horses has often been named by music critics as one of the all-time greatest albums. Lars Brandle of Billboard wrote that
8820-410: The album featured lead vocals from all five band members, with Allen Lanier singing lead on the song "True Confessions." With Albert Bouchard singing lead on three songs and Joe Bouchard and Donald Roeser singing lead on one each, Eric Bloom ended up taking the lead on only four of the album's ten songs. For the tour, the band added lasers to their light show, for which they became known. They were among
8967-524: The album had come to be regarded as "one of the finest in recorded music history." In 2003 and 2012, Horses was ranked at number 44 on Rolling Stone ' s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time , later placing at number 26 on a 2020 updated list. NME named it the 12th-greatest album of all time in a similar list published in 2013. In 2006, Time named Horses as one of the "All- Time 100 Albums", and The Observer listed it as one of 50 albums that changed music history. Three years later,
SECTION 60
#17327656814379114-485: The album is "Perfect Water" written by Dharma and Jim Carroll (noted author of The Basketball Diaries ). While the band members have generally been disparaging about the album in retrospect, Joe Bouchard has stated that "Perfect Water" is "perfect genius". The band toured in Germany, after which bassist Bouchard left, leaving only two members of the classic lineup: Eric Bloom and Donald Roeser. Some people referred to
9261-413: The album recorded with him on vocals. Eric Bloom was hired by the band as their acoustic engineer . He eventually replaced Braunstein as lead singer through a series of unlikely coincidences, one being Lanier deciding to join Bloom on a drive to an upstate gig, where he spent the night with Bloom's old college bandmates and got to hear old tapes of Bloom's talent as lead vocalist. Because of this, Bloom
9408-713: The album should be produced by Tom Dowd . Plans were made to book studio time with Dowd at Criteria in Miami, but these were complicated by his relationship with rival label Atlantic Records . Smith had a change of heart and instead set out to enlist Welsh musician John Cale , formerly of the New York City rock band the Velvet Underground , to produce Horses , for she was impressed by the raw sound of his solo albums, such as 1974's Fear . Cale accepted, having previously seen Smith perform live, in addition to being an acquaintance of her bassist Ivan Král . Horses
9555-600: The album was preserved by the Library of Congress into the National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Horses was also inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2021. For the 30th anniversary of Horses , the full album was performed live by Smith on June 25, 2005 at the Royal Festival Hall , during the Meltdown festival, which Smith curated. She
9702-655: The album's debut tour ("Morning Final"), and songs that were no longer/never played frequently ("This Ain't the Summer of Love", "Tattoo Vampire"), as well as the fan favorite "Five Guitars", which had not been played since Albert initially left the band in 1981. Albert played in the following songs at the show: "The Revenge of Vera Gemini" (vocals, guitar), "Sinful Love" (vocals, guitar), "Tattoo Vampire" (guitar), "Morning Final" (guitar), "Tenderloin" (cymbals), "Debbie Denise" (vocals, acoustic guitar), "Cities on Flame with Rock and Roll" (vocals, drums), and "Five Guitars" (guitar). In
9849-474: The album's liner notes. Band Additional personnel Sales figures based on certification alone. Shipments figures based on certification alone. Blue %C3%96yster Cult Blue Öyster Cult ( / ˈ ɔɪ . s t ər / OY-stər ; sometimes abbreviated BÖC or BOC ) is an American rock band formed on Long Island , New York, in the hamlet of Stony Brook , in 1967. The band has sold 25 million records worldwide, including 7 million in
9996-512: The album, allowing all five original members to be credited. The album did not sell well (despite a positive review in Rolling Stone magazine) and although the then-current Blue Öyster Cult lineup (minus both Bouchard brothers) toured to promote Imaginos , promotion by the label was virtually non-existent. Most songs from the album have not been performed live by the band since at least 1989. When Columbia Records' parent company CBS Records
10143-403: The album, the band's songwriting process had become more individual, with none of the songs featuring the collaborative writing between the band members that had been common on their earlier albums. Although the album still featured their trademark hard rock with sinister lyrics, the songs had become more conventional in structure, and the production was more polished. For the first and only time,
10290-414: The album, the enthusiastic reaction to Horses from the music press quickly assuaged observers' suspicions that Smith had sold out by signing to a major label. The album's sales were aided by the positive critical reception, along with substantial promotional efforts by Arista. Horses cemented Smith's reputation as a central figure of the New York City punk rock scene. It has frequently been cited as
10437-596: The anniversary of Rimbaud's death. Commercially, it performed respectably for a debut album, despite receiving little radio airplay. In the United States, Horses peaked at number 47 on the Billboard 200 album chart, remaining on the chart for 17 weeks. The album also managed chart placings in Australia, where it reached number 80; Canada, where it reached number 52; and the Netherlands, where it reached number 18. To promote Horses , Smith and her band toured
10584-469: The band "proudly flaunted a garage rock aesthetic" on Horses , while Smith "sang with the delirious release of an inspired amateur", emphasizing "honest passion" over technical proficiency. Smith's vocals on the album alternate between being sung and spoken , an approach that, according to Peter Murphy of Hot Press , "challenged the very notion of a demarcation" between the two forms. AllMusic critic Steve Huey observed that Horses borrowed ideas from
10731-710: The band announced that bassist Rudy Sarzo was leaving the band and was being replaced by former Utopia bassist Kasim Sulton . In August of the same year, it was announced that Sony Legacy would be releasing a 17-disc boxed set entitled The Complete Columbia Albums Collection on October 30, 2012. The set includes the first round of the remastered series plus the long-awaited remastered versions of On Your Feet or on Your Knees , Mirrors , Cultösaurus Erectus , Fire Of Unknown Origin , Extraterrestrial Live , The Revölution by Night , Club Ninja and Imaginos . Also exclusive to this set are two discs of rare and unreleased B-sides, demos and radio broadcasts. Also in 2012, celebrating
10878-486: The band as "Two Öyster Cult" during this period. Jon Rogers was hired to replace Joe and this version of the band finished out the 1986 tour. After it wound up that year, the band took a temporary break from recording and touring. When Blue Öyster Cult received an offer to tour in Greece in the early summer of 1987, the band reformed. Wilcox quit while Zvoncheck was fired for making excessive financial demands. Allen Lanier then
11025-407: The band initially "sounded awful" and played out of tune due to their use of damaged instruments, forcing him to procure the band new instruments before commencing recording. The differences between the work ethics of Cale, who was an experienced recording artist, and of Smith, who at this point was primarily a live performer, became apparent early on in recording, and were a source of tension between
11172-483: The band returning to their hard rock roots, and although both of the Bouchard brothers and guitarist Roeser all got lead vocal turns, Bloom would sing the majority of the tracks. The result was positive, with Cultösaurus Erectus (1980) receiving good reviews. The album went to number 12 in the United Kingdom, but did not do as well in the United States. The song " Black Blade ", which was written by Bloom with lyrics by science fiction and fantasy author Michael Moorcock ,
11319-471: The band to the label. The first album was subsequently produced and recorded by Lucas on eight-track at Lucas' studio. Winters would leave the band and be replaced by Bouchard's brother, Joe Bouchard. Their debut album Blue Öyster Cult was released in January 1972, with a black-and-white cover designed by artist Bill Gawlik. The album featured the songs " Cities on Flame with Rock and Roll ", "Stairway to
11466-460: The band's glossiest production to date. It also gave Roeser, the lead vocalist on the band's biggest hits, bigger prominence as a vocalist, singing lead on four of the nine songs. However, the resulting album sales were disappointing. Pearlman's association with Black Sabbath led to Sabbath's Heaven and Hell producer Martin Birch being hired for the next Blue Öyster Cult record. The album found
11613-459: The band's manager Sandy Pearlman and rock critic Richard Meltzer , who also met at Stony Brook University , played a key role in writing many of the band's lyrics. Blue Öyster Cult was formed in 1967 as Soft White Underbelly (a name the group would occasionally use in the 1970s and 1980s to play small club gigs around the United States and UK) in a communal house at Stony Brook University on Long Island when rock critic Sandy Pearlman overheard
11760-515: The book and film Mommie Dearest ) and " Veteran of the Psychic Wars ", another song co-written by Moorcock. Several of the songs had been written for the animated film Heavy Metal , but only "Veteran of the Psychic Wars" (which had not been written for Heavy Metal ) was actually used in the movie. The album marked a strong commercial resurgence for the band and achieved gold status, their first studio album since Spectres to do so. During
11907-480: The charts. Bloom's " Take Me Away " achieved some FM radio play. However, the album didn't match sales of its predecessor, failed to achieve gold status, and marked the beginning of the band's second commercial decline. After touring for Revölution , Rick Downey left, leaving Blue Öyster Cult without a drummer. Blue Öyster Cult re-united with Albert Bouchard for a California tour in February 1985, infamously known as
12054-470: The cover after realizing that he needed "to trust her artistic instincts thoroughly". Feminist writer Camille Paglia later referred to the Horses cover photograph as "one of the greatest pictures ever taken of a woman." In 2017, World Cafe presenter Talia Schlanger wrote that "Smith's unapologetic androgyny predates a time when that was an en vogue or even available option for women, and represents
12201-538: The debut studio album by American musician Patti Smith . It was released by Arista Records on November 10, 1975. A fixture of the mid-1970s underground rock music scene in New York City, Smith signed to Arista in April 1975 and recorded Horses with her band at Electric Lady Studios that September. She enlisted former Velvet Underground member John Cale to produce the album. With Horses , Smith drew upon her backgrounds in rock music and poetry , aiming to create an album combining both forms. The music on Horses
12348-756: 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
12495-584: The first acts to use lasers in performance. Their next album, Spectres (1977), had the FM radio hit "Godzilla," and would become one of the band's better-selling albums, with other well-known songs like "I Love the Night" and "Goin' Through the Motions". However, its sales were not as strong as those for the previous album, going gold but not platinum, becoming their first album to sell less than its predecessor. It featured even more polished production, and continued
12642-553: The first punk rock album, as well as one of the key recordings of the punk movement, appearing in professional lists of the best punk albums of all time. "Pipping the Ramones' first album to the post by five months," Simon Reynolds wrote in The Observer , " Horses is generally considered not just one of the most startling debuts in rock history but the spark that ignited the punk explosion." Horses has been described as
12789-466: The first verse of Chris Kenner 's 1962 song " Land of a Thousand Dances ". In "Land", Smith weaves the imagery of the Kenner song into an elaborate narrative about a character named Johnny—an allusion to the similarly named homoerotic protagonist of the 1971 William S. Burroughs novel The Wild Boys —while additionally referencing Arthur Rimbaud and, indirectly, Jimi Hendrix, whom Smith imagined to be
12936-419: The genders of the songs' protagonists ambiguous, a stylistic choice she said was "learnt from Joan Baez , who often sang songs that had a male point of view", while also serving as a declaration "that as an artist, I can take any position, any voice, that I want." Smith's experiences with her family inspired specific songs on Horses . "Redondo Beach", whose lyrics concern a woman who commits suicide following
13083-504: The heart of rock'n'roll ." The title Horses reflected Smith's desire for a rejuvenation of rock music, which she found had grown "calm" in reaction to the social turmoil of the 1960s and the deaths of numerous prominent rock musicians of that era. "Psychologically, somewhere in our hearts," she stated shortly after the album's release, "we were all screwed up because those people died ... We all had to pull ourselves together. To me, that's why our record's called Horses . We had to pull
13230-528: The horse". The cover photograph for Horses was taken by Robert Mapplethorpe at the Greenwich Village penthouse apartment of his partner Sam Wagstaff . Smith, shrouded in natural light, is seen wearing a plain white shirt, which she had purchased at a Salvation Army shop on the Bowery , and slinging a black jacket over her shoulder and her favorite black ribbon around her collar. Embedded on
13377-542: The iconic venue. In April 2007, Smith's cover of " Gimme Shelter " appeared on her tenth album, Twelve , an all-covers album released by Columbia Records . In July 2008, a live album by Smith and Kevin Shields , The Coral Sea , was released. On September 10, 2009, after a week of smaller events and exhibitions in Florence , Smith played an open-air concert at Piazza Santa Croce , commemorating her performance in
13524-469: The introduction to Jessica Lange 's book 50 Photographs . In 2010, Smith's book, Just Kids , a memoir of her time in Manhattan in the 1970s and her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe , was published. The book won the National Book Award for Nonfiction later that year. In 2018, a new edition of Just Kids , including additional photographs and illustrations, was published. Smith also headlined
13671-422: The jacket is a horse pin that Allen Lanier had given her. Smith described her appearance as recalling those of French poet Charles Baudelaire and, in the slinging of the jacket, American singer and actor Frank Sinatra . She recounted that Mapplethorpe "took, like, twelve pictures, and at about the eighth one, he said, 'I have it.' I said, 'How do you know?' and he said, 'I just know,' and I said, 'Okay.' And that
13818-409: The late 1990s, Blue Öyster Cult secured a recording contract with CMC Records (later purchased by Sanctuary Records ), and continued to tour frequently. Two studio albums were released, Heaven Forbid (1998) and Curse of the Hidden Mirror (2001). Both albums featured songs co-written by cyberpunk/horror novelist John Shirley . The first mostly featured Miranda on bass and Burgi on drums, although
13965-400: The lines between punk and poetry", while CMJ writer Steve Klinge found that they recalled the energy of Beat poetry and the "revolutionary spirit" of French poet Arthur Rimbaud , one of Smith's primary influences. Smith drew on different sources of lyrical inspiration for Horses , with some songs being autobiographical and others being rooted in dreams and fantastical scenarios. She left
14112-508: The majority of the songs. The album sold well, and Blue Öyster Cult toured with artists such as the Byrds , Mahavishnu Orchestra and Alice Cooper . As the band toured, its sound became heavier and more direct. Their second album Tyranny and Mutation , released in 1973, was written while the band was on tour for their first album. It contained songs such as "The Red and the Black" (an ode to
14259-536: The moment he started to seriously consider forming a group. Morrissey and Johnny Marr shared an appreciation for the record, and one of their early compositions for the Smiths , "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle", uses a melody based on that of "Kimberly". Courtney Love of Hole recounted that listening to Horses as a teenager helped encourage her to pursue a career in rock music, while PJ Harvey recalled hearing
14406-454: The most incandescent flights and stillnesses of this album she joins the ranks of people like Miles Davis , Charles Mingus , or the Dylan of ' Sad Eyed Lady ' and Royal Albert Hall ." The Village Voice ' s Robert Christgau said that while the album does not capture Smith's humor, it "gets the minimalist fury of her band and the revolutionary dimension of her singing just fine." In
14553-470: The nascent punk rock genre, which had emerged in New York City in the mid-1970s and counted among its practitioners Smith, Television, and fellow CBGB regulars such as the Ramones . Author Joe Tarr identified a punk sensibility in the music's reliance on simple chord progressions , and William Ruhlmann of AllMusic also cited Lenny Kaye's rudimentary guitar playing and the "anarchic spirit" of Smith's vocals as being representative of punk. Tarr wrote that
14700-787: The next decade-and-a-half. Two more studio albums were released in the 2020s, The Symbol Remains (2020) and Ghost Stories (2024), the latter of which is said to be the band's last. Blue Öyster Cult's longest-lasting and the most commercially successful lineup included Donald "Buck Dharma" Roeser (lead guitar, vocals), Eric Bloom (lead vocals, " stun guitar ", keyboards, synthesizer), Allen Lanier (keyboards, rhythm guitar), Joe Bouchard (bass, vocals, keyboards), and Albert Bouchard (drums, percussion, vocals, miscellaneous instruments). The band's current lineup still includes Bloom and Roeser, in addition to Danny Miranda (bass, backing vocals), Richie Castellano (keyboards, rhythm guitar, backing vocals), and Jules Radino (drums, percussion). The duo of
14847-601: The position of bassist was taken up by Rudy Sarzo (previously a member of Quiet Riot , Whitesnake , Ozzy Osbourne and Dio ), with the band employing Danny Miranda and Jon Rogers as guest bassists to fill in when Sarzo was unavailable. Sarzo then joined as an official member of the band, although Rogers continued to occasionally fill in when Sarzo was busy. In February 2007, the Sony Legacy remaster series continued, releasing expanded versions of studio album Spectres and live album Some Enchanted Evening . In June 2012,
14994-645: The publication of Double Blind: Lebanon Conflict 2006, a book with photographs by Paolo Pellegrin , a member of Magnum Photos . She also participated in the DVD commentary for Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters . From March 28 to June 22, 2008, the Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain in Paris hosted a major exhibition of the visual artwork of Land 250 , drawn from pieces created by Smith between 1967 and 2007. In 2009, she contributed
15141-434: The reins on ourselves to recharge ourselves ... We've gotten ourselves back together. It's time to let the horses loose again. We're ready to start moving again." Smith later reflected that she had envisioned Horses as a record bridging the "great artists that we had just lost" and the next generation of rockers, who she hoped would "be less materialistic, more bonded with the people and not so glamorous", and that from
15288-581: The release of Gone Again, Smith recorded two further albums, Peace and Noise in 1997, which included the single " 1959 " about China's invasion of Tibet , and Gung Ho in 2000, which included songs about Ho Chi Minh and Smith's late father. Smith was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance for two songs, "1959" and " Glitter in Their Eyes ". A box set of Smith's work up to that time, The Patti Smith Masters .
15435-528: The same city 30 years earlier. Smith recorded a cover of Buddy Holly 's " Words of Love " for the CD Rave on Buddy Holly , a tribute album tied to Holly's 75th birthday, which was released June 28, 2011. She also recorded the song "Capitol Letter" for the official soundtrack of the second film of the Hunger Games ' series The Hunger Games: Catching Fire . Smith's 11th studio album, Banga ,
15582-542: The same day that they finished recording Horses , Smith and her band performed a live show in support of the upcoming album at an Arista convention held at the New York City Center , where they were personally introduced by Clive Davis. They previewed five songs from the album: "Birdland", "Redondo Beach", "Break It Up", "Land", and, as their encore, "Free Money". Lisa Robinson reported afterwards in NME that
15729-400: The same year, the band's official website started to list Miranda as an official member, stating that Miranda had "returned to BÖC" in early 2017. Buck Dharma stated in February 2019 that the band would be recording a new album to be released by fall. On July 10, 2019, it was announced that the band had signed to Frontiers Music, and would in fact be releasing the new album in 2020. "It's been
15876-590: The song's protagonist, "dreaming a simple rock-and-roll song, and it takes him into all these other realms." The characterization of Johnny in "Land" was also inspired by photographer Robert Mapplethorpe —who was a close friend of Smith and shot the picture of her used for the Horses album cover—and his experiences in the New York S&;M scene; in her memoir Just Kids (2010), Smith refers to Mapplethorpe and Burroughs, sitting together in CBGB, as "Johnny and
16023-540: The songs for the new record exist and the rest will be finished during the process," added Buck Dharma. In February 2020, Richie Castellano posted a short video to Facebook featuring himself and Eric Bloom, stating that the band were working on the new Blue Öyster Cult record remotely by using ConnectionOpen online audio collaboration tool. In August 2020, the band announced on their website that their fifteenth studio album The Symbol Remains would be released on October 9, 2020. The span of nineteen years between Curse of
16170-471: The studio for the next album, The Revölution by Night (1983), with Bruce Fairbairn as producer. After two albums of a return to a harder rocking sound, the band adopted a more radio-friendly, AOR -oriented sound with Fairbairn providing a 1980s-style production. This approach met with some success, especially on its highest-charting single, Roeser's " Shooting Shark ", co-written by Patti Smith and featuring Randy Jackson on bass, which reached number 83 on
16317-482: 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 . The injury required a period of rest and physical therapy , during which she says she
16464-405: The then-current line-up of the band, playing at shows in New York, Los Angeles, Dublin and London, where Blue Öyster Cult played the album Agents of Fortune in its entirety. The shows featured songs from Agents of Fortune that had either not been played live before ("True Confessions", "The Revenge of Vera Gemini", "Sinful Love", "Tenderloin", "Debbie Denise"), songs that had not been played since
16611-402: The things he had to do." She expressed gratitude for Cale's persistence in working with her and her band, and found that his production made the most out of their "adolescent and honest flaws". Smith characterized Horses as " three-chord rock merged with the power of the word". Consequence ' s Lior Phillips noted that the minimalist quality of the album's music "matched the tone of"
16758-500: The three albums during this formative period all had black-and-white covers, the period of their career has been dubbed the "black and white years" by fans and critics. The band's first live album On Your Feet or on Your Knees (1975) achieved greater success and went gold. Its success gave the band more time to work on a follow-up. The band members were able to purchase home recording equipment to record demos for their next album. Their next studio album, Agents of Fortune (1976),
16905-409: The three original members remained constant, there were several changes in the band's rhythm section. Ron Riddle quit in 1991 and was followed by a series of other drummers including Chuck Burgi (1991–1992, 1992–1995, 1996–1997), John Miceli (1992, 1995), John O'Reilly (1995–1996) and Bobby Rondinelli (1997–2004). As for the bass position, Rogers left in 1995, and was replaced by Danny Miranda. In
17052-422: The time, did not get along with Cale, nor—particularly so—with Verlaine, who had previously dated Smith. This tension culminated with Lanier and Verlaine getting into a physical altercation during the final session, held on September 18. For several years after the album's release, Smith often downplayed Cale's contributions to Horses and suggested that she and her band had ignored his suggestions entirely. In
17199-457: 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 . 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
17346-493: The tour for Fire of Unknown Origin , Albert Bouchard had a falling out with the others and left the band, and Rick Downey (formerly the band's lighting designer) replaced him on drums. This marked the end of the band's original and best-known lineup. After leaving the band, Albert Bouchard spent five years working on a solo album based on Sandy Pearlman's poem "Imaginos". Blue Öyster Cult also released their third live album, Extraterrestrial Live , in 1982. The band then went to
17493-434: The trend of the lead vocals extensively shared between members, although Allen Lanier did not sing lead. As with the previous album, Eric Bloom sang lead on fewer than half the songs. The band then released another live album, Some Enchanted Evening (1978). Although it was intended as another double-live album in the vein of On Your Feet or on Your Knees , Columbia insisted that it be edited down to single-album length. It
17640-519: The two artists, who frequently argued in the studio. Kaye also pointed to their clashing musical visions for the album, with Cale picturing "a more arranged record, one fleshed out with intriguing sound palettes and melodic lines", and Smith and her band preferring a more spontaneous approach to playing their material, akin to their live performances. The final album was ultimately informed by both perspectives, making use of multitracking and overdubbing on its more structured songs, while still capturing
17787-459: The victim. And he had me so nuts I wound up doing this nine-minute cut that transcended anything I ever did before. Cale said in 1996 that Smith initially struck him as "someone with an incredibly volatile mouth who could handle any situation", and that as producer on Horses he wanted to capture the energy of her live performances, noting that there "was a lot of power in Patti's use of language, in
17934-403: The way images collided with one another." He likened their working relationship during recording to "an immutable force meeting an immovable object." Smith would later attribute much of the tension between herself and Cale to her inexperience with formal studio recording, recalling that she was "very, very suspicious, very guarded and hard to work with" and "made it difficult for him to do some of
18081-454: The wrong guy. All I was really looking for was a technical person. Instead, I got a total maniac artist. I went to pick out an expensive watercolor painting and instead I got a mirror. It was really like A Season in Hell , for both of us. But inspiration doesn't always have to be someone sending me half a dozen American Beauty roses. There's a lotta inspiration going on between the murderer and
18228-673: Was a guest at the Sanremo Music Festival . Also in 2011, Smith was working on a crime novel set in London. "I've been working on a detective story that starts at the St Giles in the Fields church in London for the last two years", she told NME , adding that she "loved detective stories" and was a fan of British fictional detective Sherlock Holmes and U.S. crime author Mickey Spillane in her youth. Also in 2010, Smith made
18375-465: 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 ,
18522-587: Was a resounding commercial success, becoming Blue Öyster Cult's most popular album and eventually selling over two million copies. It also revealed that while the band's studio work was becoming increasingly well-produced, they were still very much a hard rock band on stage. It was followed by the studio album Mirrors (1979). For Mirrors , instead of working with previous producers Sandy Pearlman (who instead went on to manage Black Sabbath) and Murray Krugman, Blue Öyster Cult chose Tom Werman , who had worked with acts such as Cheap Trick and Ted Nugent . It featured
18669-424: Was able to reassess, reenergize, and reorganize her life. The Patti Smith Group produced two further albums. Easter , released in 1978, was their most commercially successful record. It included the band's top single " Because the Night ", co-written with Bruce Springsteen . Wave (1979) was less successful, although the songs " Frederick " and " Dancing Barefoot " received commercial airplay. Through most of
18816-469: Was additionally inspired by Smith's reflections on the previous era of rock music—with two of its songs being adapted in part from 1960s rock standards , and others containing lyrical allusions and tributes to past rock performers—and her hopes for the music's future. At the time of its release, Horses experienced modest commercial success and reached the top 50 of the Billboard 200 album chart, while being widely acclaimed by music critics. Recognized as
18963-417: Was an immensely influential New York City live music venue for much of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. At the CBGB show, Smith took the stage at 9:30 p.m. (EDT) and closed her show a few minutes after 1:00 am. Her final song was "Elegie", after which she read a list of punk rock musicians and advocates who had died in the previous years, representing the last public song and words performed at
19110-423: Was backed by original band members Lenny Kaye and Jay Dee Daugherty, as well as Tony Shanahan on bass guitar and piano, Tom Verlaine on guitar, and Flea on bass guitar and trumpet. In 2015, Smith performed Horses in its entirety at a series of concerts celebrating its 40th anniversary. The 30th-anniversary performance was released on November 8, 2005 as the second disc of a double CD titled Horses/Horses , with
19257-431: Was her first album on Columbia Records , which later became a sister label to her Arista Records , her previous label. Smith curated the Meltdown festival in London on June 25, 2005, in which she performed Horses live in its entirety for the first time. This live performance was released later in 2004 as Horses/Horses . On October 15, 2006, Smith performed a 3½-hour tour de force show to close out at CBGB , which
19404-465: Was informed by the minimalist aesthetic of the punk rock genre, then in its formative years. Smith and her band composed the album's songs using simple chord progressions , while also breaking from punk tradition in their propensity for improvisation and embrace of ideas from avant-garde and other musical styles. Smith's lyrics were alternately rooted in her own personal experiences, particularly with her family, and in more fantastical imagery. Horses
19551-491: Was it." The black-and-white treatment and androgynous pose were a departure from the typical promotional images of female singers of the time. Arista executives wanted to make various changes to the photograph, but Smith overruled their suggestions. Clive Davis wrote in 2013 that he was initially conflicted about the image, recognizing its "power" but feeling that it would confuse audiences unfamiliar with Smith and her style of music. He put aside his reservations and approved
19698-558: Was met with near-universal acclaim from critics. Music journalist Mary Anne Cassata said that it was roundly hailed as "one of the most original first albums ever recorded." Reviewing the album for Rolling Stone , John Rockwell wrote that Horses is "wonderful in large measure because it recognizes the overwhelming importance of words" in Smith's work, covering a range of themes "far beyond what most rock records even dream of." Rockwell highlighted Smith's adaptations of "Gloria" and "Land of
19845-594: Was offered the job of lead singer for Soft White Underbelly. However, a bad review of a 1969 Fillmore East show caused Pearlman to change the name of the band – first to Oaxaca, then to the Stalk-Forrest Group. Pearlman also gave stage names to each of the band members (Jesse Python for Eric Bloom, Buck Dharma for Donald Roeser, Andy Panda for Andy Winters, Prince Omega for Albert Bouchard, La Verne for Allen Lanier) but only Buck Dharma kept his. The band recorded yet another album's worth of material for Elektra, but only one single ("What Is Quicksand?" b/w "Arthur Comics")
19992-758: Was offered to rejoin and agreed, so the new line-up now featured three founding members, along with Jon Rogers returning on bass and Ron Riddle as their newest drummer. Columbia Records was not interested in releasing the Imaginos project as an Albert Bouchard solo album so it was arranged for the record to be released in 1988 by Columbia as a Blue Öyster Cult album, with some new lead vocal overdubs from Bloom and Roeser and lead guitar overdubs from Roeser. These replaced most of Albert Bouchard's lead vocals, as well as many lead guitar parts that had been recorded by session musicians. Joe Bouchard and Allen Lanier had earlier contributed some minor keyboard and backing vocal parts to
20139-498: Was purchased by Sony and became Sony Music Entertainment , Blue Öyster Cult were dropped from the label. The band spent most of the 1990s touring without releasing an album of new material, although they did contribute two new songs to the Bad Channels movie soundtrack, released in 1992, and also released an album of re-recorded songs from the band's original lineup, called Cult Classic , in 1994. During these years, while
20286-412: Was recorded at Electric Lady Studios in New York City, with Smith retaining the same backing band with whom she performed live at the time— Jay Dee Daugherty on drums, Lenny Kaye on guitar, Ivan Král on bass guitar, and Richard Sohl on keyboards. Several of the album's songs were already fixtures of the band's sets at CBGB. The first studio session was held on September 2; Cale later recalled that
20433-541: Was recorded in a hotel overlooking Lerici 's Bay of Poets. On September 26, 2015, Smith performed at the American Museum of Tort Law convocation ceremony. On December 6, 2015, she made an appearance at the Paris show of U2 's Innocence + Experience Tour , performing " Bad " and " People Have the Power " with U2. In 2016, Smith performed "People Have the Power" at Riverside Church in Manhattan to celebrate
20580-489: Was recorded, at Smith's request, on the fifth anniversary of Hendrix's death, which fell on September 18, the final day of recording. Smith said that the song was also intended to pay tribute to other deceased rock artists such as Jim Morrison, Brian Jones , and Janis Joplin . Two songs on Horses are partial adaptations of rock standards : " Gloria ", a radical reimagining of the 1964 Them song incorporating verses from Smith's own poem "Oath", and "Land", which features
20727-529: Was released (and only in a promo edition of 300 copies) on Elektra Records (this album was eventually released, with additional outtakes, by Rhino Handmade Records as St. Cecilia: The Elektra Recordings in 2001). The album featured Bloom as their main lead singer, but Roeser also sang lead on a few songs, a pattern of sharing lead vocals that has continued throughout the band's career. With Bloom, Soft White Underbelly/Stalk-Forrest Group became one of Stony Brook University's "house bands," popular on campus. After
20874-567: Was released in 1996. In 2002, Smith released Land (1975–2002) , a two-CD compilation that includes a cover of Prince 's " When Doves Cry ". Smith's solo art exhibition Strange Messenger was hosted at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh on September 28, 2002. On April 27, 2004, Smith released Trampin' , which included several songs about motherhood, partly in tribute to Smith's mother, who died two years earlier. It
21021-461: Was released in June 2012. American Songwriter wrote that, "These songs aren't as loud or frantic as those of her late 70s heyday, but they resonate just as boldly as she moans, chants, speaks and spits out lyrics with the grace and determination of Mohammad Ali in his prime. It's not an easy listen—the vast majority of her music never has been—but if you're a fan and/or prepared for the challenge, this
21168-516: Was replaced by Jules Radino. Miranda left during the same year to become the bassist for Queen + Paul Rodgers in place of the retired John Deacon . He was replaced by Richie Castellano, who would also take occasional turns as a lead vocalist onstage. Allen Lanier retired from live performances in 2007 after not appearing with the band since late 2006. Castellano switched to rhythm guitar and keyboards (Castellano also filled in on lead guitar and vocals for an ailing Buck Dharma in two shows in 2005), and
21315-695: Was so enthused by the record that he made repeated attempts to book Smith and her band for an appearance on his Granada Television program So It Goes . At the end of 1975, Horses was voted the second-best album of the year, behind Bob Dylan and the Band 's The Basement Tapes , in the Pazz & Jop , an annual poll of American critics published in The Village Voice . NME placed Horses at number 13 on its year-end list of 1975's best albums. According to writer Philip Shaw in his 33⅓ book profiling
21462-411: Was the first real female writer in rock." R.E.M. 's Michael Stipe bought a copy of Horses as a high school student and later stated that the album "tore [his] limbs off and put them back on in a whole different order", citing Smith as his primary inspiration for becoming a musician. Similarly, his R.E.M. bandmate Peter Buck cited attending the four Atlanta shows Smith played on her first US tour as
21609-485: Was their first to go platinum and was again produced by David Lucas. It contained the hit single "(Don't Fear) The Reaper", which reached number 12 on the Billboard charts and has become a classic of the hard rock genre. Other major songs on the album were "(This Ain't) The Summer of Love", "E.T.I. (Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence)" and "The Revenge of Vera Gemini". Having recorded demos of the songs at home before recording
#436563