The story of how Bob Dylan encouraged Patti Smith’s return to music
In 1994, Patti Smith’s life was marked with tragedy. After the death of her husband and collaborator, Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith, swiftly followed by the loss of her brother, Todd, the punk poet needed to rebuild her life. The one way she knew how to do that was to return to work and navigate grief through her artistry. To help her take the first steps back, one musician reached out a hand.
It was a devastating end to a beautiful period. After emerging in the New York punk scene, Smith found a partner and soulmate in the MC5 guitarist. They instantly bonded over their mutual love of poetry and literature and their uniting musical professions. In the 1980s, they got married, and the couple moved to Michigan to raise their family. For a decade, it was bliss as the couple worked together on music, collaborating on Dream of Life, but quietly and in private.
“I started waking up at five in the morning and, while everyone was sleeping, studying and writing until eight every day if I could. It was a strong daily practice,” Smith said of the period. “But I didn’t publish again until the 1990s. I just wrote and wrote—and evolved. Fred studied different things. He learned how to be a pilot and had other interests. We lived a simple life.”
Smith stopped touring to prioritise her life with her children and her new way of working. But then, in 1994, Fred Smith died of heart failure, leaving his wife suddenly alone with their family. Only shortly later, another vital branch of her support network fell away as her brother Todd suddenly passed, too.
In such quick succession, the losses were unconscionable. Smith was no stranger to grief, having previously lost her friend Robert Maplethorpe and faced the death of many of her era’s brightest talents during the 1960s and ‘70s. But this was different. She wasn’t just mourning her husband and brother but was mourning the life they’d had and the fact that her life would now look different forever.
In an attempt to help their friend handle this, Smith’s circle wondered whether reuniting her with her old life would help if perhaps a return to her years on the road as a working musician might prove to be grounding. R.E.M’s Michael Stipe reached out, as did her Chelsea Hotel peer, Allen Ginsberg, encouraging her to return to work. But it was Bob Dylan who put a plan in motion, held out his hand, and brought her back out on the road.
“I hadn’t performed for over 16 years, but Bob Dylan offered me the chance to tour with him, which was a safe way to return,” Smith told Harvard Business Review. This wasn’t just a safe return but was a deeply inspiring and powerful one. Dylan has always been more than just a favoured artist of Smith’s; he was an idol. When she first met the folk star back in the 1970s, she said, “There was an electricity in that room.” When they then became peers and friends, it became a deeply important connection in Smith’s life.
While on the road, they’d play each night and hang out each day. Smith told The Irish Times that they would walk “and just talk. I related completely to him. His arrogance, his humour, his mergence of poetry and performance”.
So her decision to say yes to his tour and join him on the road not only met she was returning to work alongside a friend but was being reminded, night after night, of the music she loved and of her own power as she shared a bill with someone she deeply inspired.
Never Miss A Tale
The Far Out Bob Dylan Newsletter
All the latest stories about Bob Dylan from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.