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.
On May 17, 1979 Arista Records released Wave, the Patti Smith Group's fourth album. Produced by Todd Rundgren, the album's best known track is "Dancing Barefoot". Patti wrote about the song on her website PattiSmithLand.com :
I wrote the lyrics for Dancing Barefoot in late 1978 and it was recorded for Wave in 1979. The music stemmed from some ideas that Ivan Kral recorded on a cassette tape and gave to me. He had written "Rock and Reggae" on it. The music that became Dancing Barefoot was from an acoustic guitar riff that he wrote and that we developed as a band.
I had the concept to write a lyric line that would have several levels - the love of one human being for another and the love of ones creator. So in a sense, the song addresses both physical and spiritual love. Truthfully I always imagined Jim Morrison singing it, which resulted in me singing and recording it in a lower vocal register. I wanted the verse to have a masculine appeal and the chorus to have a feminine one. Our producer, Todd Rundgren, had a strong input, influencing the sounds of the guitars and Richard Sohl's keyboard line. Todd also wrote and played the bass line. The song was extremely popular in Europe and with the people of America, but in 1979 it was considered too provocative for American radio. The use of the word "heroine", which of course is used in the context of the song as the feminine of HERO, was objected to. It was suggested that I change the word "heroine" and consult the thesaurus for a suitable replacement. I am happy with my decision to let it stand as written.
The album begins with the first single, the "Prove It All Night" sound-a-like "Frederick", written about her husband-to-be Fred "Sonic" Smith. When the album failed to sell the way Easter did, the group broke up and Patti moved to Michigan with her husband and raised two children. She wouldn't return to recording until 1988's Dreams of Life.
On March 3, 1978 Patti Smith released Easter, her first album since that terrifying 12 foot tumble from a Florida stage which put her in a neck brace for three months. With Jimmy Iovine producing, and a hit single written by Bruce Springsteen, Patti scored a her first Top 20 album. It was the first album of hers that I owned and I can't say I enjoyed it at first. The poet priestess seems to emerge in every other song, spouting out some kind of babelogue ( her word). At other times, the band seemed to rock by numbers, with a kind of mainstream sheen. And what's with a song called "Rock and Roll Nigger"?
Horses is the great Patti Smith album. Easter is that difficult third album. Flashes of brilliance. But not sustained the way it is on Horses.
Over time, the album has gained more fans than detractors which makes Dave Marsh's five star Rolling Stone review a much more interesting read:
Easter makes good on Patti Smith's biggest boast — that she is one of the great figures of Seventies rock and roll. More importantly perhaps, it focuses her mystical and musical visions in a way that makes her the most profoundly religious American popular performer since Jim Morrison. Clearly, there are bothersome contradictions between Smith's arrogance and her preachings, between her utter belief in the power of her own will and her absolute certainty that society's only salvation lies in a return to ecstatic ritual surrender. But Easter, like the rite on which it is based, can't be apprehended rationally: you either take it on faith or not at all.
The magic of Easter is undeniable. It is transcendent and fulfilled, and its radiance must be honored. No one else could have made this record — something that can't be said of most LPs — and for a special reason: no one else in rock and roll would have the nerve to connect Lou Reed, the Bible, Rim-baud, the Paiutes, Jim Morrison, Bruce Springsteen and the MC5. I don't suppose Patti Smith can walk on water. But I'd like to see her try.
Robert Christgau was another fan, giving Easter an A-:
As basic as ever in its instrumentation and rhythmic thrust, but grander, more martial. That's what she gets for starting an army and hanging out with Bruce Springsteen (not to mention lusting after Ronnie Spector), and she could have done a lot worse: the miracle is that most of these songs are rousing in the way they're meant to be. Meanwhile, for bullshit--would it be a Patti Smith album without bullshit?--there's the stuff about "niggers" and "transformation of waste," and as if to exemplify the latter there's a great song from Privilege, a movie I've always considered one of the worst ever. Guess I'll have to look at it again.
Easter would finish #14 in the Village Voice Pazz and Jop critics poll and #9 in the Sounds Magazine. The single "Because The Night" topped the latter's singles poll and was a runner up in both Rolling Stone's critics and readers poll.
this is exactly what's going down, i'm alone. there is no sound.cars hiss by my window...a sonic drone...id like to get up and put LA Woman on but i just can't
-Patti Smith, liner notes
On October 22, 1976 The Patti Smith Group released Radio Ethiopia, a more conventional set of rock songs than Horses. Produced by Jack Douglas (Toys in the Attic, Imagine), the album is more band-oriented than a spotlight for the poet/prophet.
Some critics accused Patti Smith of selling out. Not the best ones. Robert Christgau gave the album an A-minus grade which helped Radio Ethiopia squeeze into the 1976 Pazz and Jop Critics poll at #30:
When it works, which is just about everywhere but the (eleven-minute) title track, this delivers the charge of heavy metal without the depressing predictability; its riff power--and the riffs are even better than the lyrics on this rockpoet experiment--has the human elan of a band that is still learning to play.
Radio Ethiopia is for people who go to sleep and dream of waking somewhere else.
