Patti Smith Group : Frederick
"My yearning for him permeated everything--my poems, my songs, my heart."
-Patti Smith in M Train
On March 1, 1980 Patti Smith married Fred "Sonic" Smith, best known as the guitarist of the MC5. What followed was a nine year musical sabbatical Patti spent raising two children, drinking good coffee, listening to Tigers baseball games on the radio, traveling, writing and immersing herself in the works of great writers, explorers and artists. In 1988 The Smith would collaborate on Dream of Life, the album that contains the anthemic "People Have The Power". Six years later her husband would die of a heart attack at the age of 46. His presence weaves in and out of her memoir M Train, to devastating effect when she watches "Master and Commander" on a flight to Tokyo:
Captain Jack Aubrey reminded me so much of Fred that I watched it twice. Midflight I began to weep. Just come back, I was thinking. You've been gone long enough. Just come back. I will stop traveling; I will wash your clothes.
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