Patti Smith Group - Easter
- FaceOff - עימות חזיתי
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Written By: Moti Kupfer
Release date - 03.03.1978
In an artist’s life there are moments when everything feels heavy. Moments of crisis. Times when life is painted in darker shades.
On January 23, 1977, while touring in support of her second album "Radio Ethiopia", rock singer Patti Smith fell from a high stage in Tampa, Florida. The result was devastating: two cracked vertebrae, broken facial bones, and 22 stitches to close the wounds on her head. Miraculously, she did not break her neck.
The tour was abruptly canceled, and Smith was forced into a long recovery. But she refused to surrender.
“You decide your fate, whether you will crumble into pieces or gather yourself up and move on,” Smith noted. And she did exactly that. She gathered the pieces, quite literally, joined forces with producer Jimmy Iovine, and a year later released her third album, "Easter", on March 3, 1978.
It was an album that reinforced her status as an uncompromising, independent creator, while for the first time also granting her recognition among a broader audience. Iovine, who three years earlier had worked with Bruce Springsteen on his breakthrough album "Born to Run" as an engineer and mixing supervisor, knew that “The Boss” had a song that could perfectly suit Patti Smith, even though it had been written from a male perspective.
Iovine called Springsteen and asked him to give a song to a rock singer he was producing. At the time, Springsteen was nearing the end of a legal battle against his former manager Mike Appel, a dispute that had prevented him from releasing an album for three years. He agreed.
The rest, as they say, is history.
"Because the Night" became the first, and ultimately the only major chart hit of a singer who was also a poet, painter, author, and songwriter who challenged social conventions. With that song, she became a defining symbol of female punk rock before such a label even truly existed.
Patricia Lee Smith was born on December 30, 1946, at Grant Hospital in Chicago, to Beverly Smith, a former jazz singer, and Grant Smith, a mechanic. She spent most of her childhood in Philadelphia and New Jersey, and at an early age was exposed to the records of Harry Belafonte and Bob Dylan.
In 1964, after graduating high school, she gave birth to her first child, whom she placed for adoption, and began studying at Glassboro State College in New Jersey.
Three years later, Smith left college and moved to New York. While working at a bookstore she met photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, who later became her partner. Smith regarded him as one of the most important and influential figures in her life. He photographed the cover of her debut album "Horses" and contributed images that appeared inside "Easter".
In 1969, Smith traveled to Paris with her sister, where she began working in performance art. She later returned to Manhattan and appeared in plays such as Femme Fatale and in the play "Island" as part of the St. Mark’s Poetry Project.
In the early seventies, Smith immersed herself in painting, writing, and performing poetry, until in 1971 she met guitarist Lenny Kaye, who accompanied her on electric guitar at her first poetry performance.
In 1973, Kaye and Smith were joined by pianist Richard Sohl, Czech bassist Ivan Kral, and drummer Jay Dee Daugherty, completing the lineup that would become the "Patti Smith Group".
After signing with Arista Records, Smith released her debut album "Horses", issued under her own name without the band’s name, produced by John Cale. Less than a year later came "Radio Ethiopia", which struggled commercially, in part due to the abrupt cancellation of the tour following her injury.
Before recording her third album, Smith understood that Arista expected her to reveal a more accessible side, songs that would speak to the masses and sell records. So she did what a strong-willed artist does in such a moment. She wrote a bold, exposed, confrontational album, touching sacred cows and daring to title the track intended as a single "Rock N Roll Nigger". Needless to say, it was ultimately not released as a single.
"Easter" blends a wide range of musical styles: solid rock in "Till Victory", classic rock and roll in "25th Floor", folk in "Ghost Dance", and spoken word in "Babelogue". Beyond the apparent provocation of "Rock N Roll Nigger", she pushes boundaries in "Space Monkey", which ends with male moans that leave little to the imagination.
True to its title, "Easter" is filled with specific biblical and Christian imagery. "Privilege (Set Me Free)" draws on words from the Book of Psalms, while the closing track "Easter" evokes Catholic imagery of baptism. "Ghost Dance" refers to the late 19th-century Native American religious revival movement.
Beyond the hit "Because the Night", which she initially resisted adopting due to her desire to determine her own destiny through her own songs, Smith offers a glimpse into the life of a poet who is a strong woman unafraid to live within emotional complexity. "We Three" was written about her relationship with keyboardist Allen Lanier of "Blue Öyster Cult", while she was simultaneously drawn to her musician friend Tom Verlaine.
The album cover, photographed by Lynn Goldsmith, became part of Smith’s ongoing challenge to the establishment. She appears with visible underarm hair, something that at the time did not conform to the accepted model of feminine beauty, another quiet but powerful rebellion that perfectly fit the spirit of "Easter".
For Listening: Spotify, Apple Music
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