Patti Smith: A Biography

By Nick Johnstone

Book Overview

This biography traces the career of Patti Smith from home town poems to street performances in Paris, the highlife in New York, and life with her husband in Detroit. It covers the release of her debut album in 1975 and collaborations with people such as Bruce Springsteen.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 071196193X
• ISBN13: 9780711961937
• Release Date: November 1997
• Publisher: Omnibus Pr & Schirmer Trade Books
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 1.0" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

Patti Smith Incomplete

I mostly enjoyed this book; it is obvious that Mr Johnstone did not personally interview Patti or anyone close to her, either personally or professionally - he acknowledges as much, and that may have hampered him in obtaining crucial facts, but he has evidentally spent considerable time reading other material, so the book is pretty well researched and does include info I had never read before. I am still a little taken aback by some factual errors; as someone has already pointed out, the repeated misspelling of Jimmy Iovine's name (I fail to see how someone who works as a music writer would not know the name of such a well-known producer), also he gets Patti's son Jackson's birth year wrong! As for the attempted interpretations of Patti's writing; didn't Mr Johnstone have access to a lyric sheet for "Easter"? He thinks the title track is about "Frederick and Little Lee" and assumes the latter is a nickname Fred gave Patti because her middle name is Lee? The actual names referenced are "Frederic and Vitalie" the siblings of Arthur Rimbaud, and the song is about their First Communion - this is explained in the liner notes! His dissection of the poems "Judith" and "Judith Revisited" are equally ridiculous; he speculates as to whether they refer to a lesbian crush or a male lusting after a female friend, even as he acknowledges the "red herrings" that one apparently has the name "Patti" and "homosexual love" is mentioned! Patti wrote those poems about her own unrequited crush on her friend Judy Linn, the photographer - she discussed it extensively in a 1972 interview with Victor Bockris! I can't believe Mr Johnstone missed these facts, since he does seem to have read up on a lot of research material. Anyway, overall it did make for an interesting read, minus the "interpretations". I was a little disappointed at the photos; a lot of them are not even of Patti, and the ones that are do not include any accompanying info about when and where they were taken. However, the cover photo more than makes up for it - it is gorgeous! Such a pale-skinned beauty; the stuff that dreams are made of,for this girl at least :)