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A poet laureate and the voice of a generation: how Patti Smith and Bob Dylan became friends

Sat 16 March 2024 20:30, UK

For most children who somehow sense deep down they are not cut out for the standard path, with vivid imaginations fixated on making art, the notion of meeting, let alone befriending, their heroes remains a dream that gradually fades as the years go by, and the day jobs beckon. Yet, for those such as Patti Smith, who followed her creative instincts against all odds, it’s a reality that she still pinches herself about.

Smith is, of course, in the minority when it comes to making dreams materialise, but she had all the suitable means to make it happen. Born to a former jazz singer mother, encouraged to explore her art when a young child, it wasn’t long before she forged a way into a career as a creative.

Also possessing a vivid imagination, Smith was inspired by J.M. Barrie’s character, Peter Pan, who famously refused to grow up. This fuelled her drive not to give into society’s expectations and continue to explore the potential of her dream of becoming a writer, in whatever form that may have looked. The ever-youthful hero still inspires her today. Whenever she’s in London, she visits his statue in Kensington Gardens as a reminder of how far she’s come and the lessons the fictional character taught her.

Like any artist of cultural value, Smith was in the right place at the right time. Galvanised by the rock ‘n’ roll developments of the 1950s, it was in the ’60s that the artists would start to resonate with her personally. The first was folk revival pioneer Joan Baez, whose voice, poetry, politics, and aesthetic spoke to her on a much deeper level than the day’s other most exciting acts.

It was through Baez that Smith, like many others, would come to learn of Bob Dylan, who was fast making waves on the folk underground. Perhaps the greatest poet music has ever known, he revitalised the political art of Woody Guthrie and captured the imagination of beatniks and hippies alike. For Smith, Dylan only became a driving force in her own life when he went electric with 1965’s Bringing It All Back Home. It was a choice which didn’t please everyone at the time, with the most ardent folk defenders deeming him nothing more than Judas, a sort of musical Sol Campbell.

Yet, this release saw Dylan take things up a few notches for Smith. She needed to hear his refined convergence of rock ‘n’ roll, image, and poetry during this era at that point in her personal metamorphosis. After developing enough, thanks in part to his influence, in 1971, Smith started doing poetry readings on her own. In 1972, for performances, she would often be backed by guitarist Lenny Kaye and sometimes even New York’s foremost psychedelic multi-instrumentalist, Sandy Bull.

By 1974, as New York’s post-1960s counterculture was starting to form fully, Smith refined her work, combining her natural skill at improvising with a style of rock utilising three chords. It was in November of that year that she released her debut single, ‘Hey Joe/Piss Factory’, a perfect way to kick off. In 1975, after the locomoting Patti Smith Group was spotted playing at the CBGB nightclub by Clive Davis he signed them to his Arista Records, which would boost her meteoric rise. Later that year, their debut album, Horses, arrived, which was a monumental release.

Over the rest of the decade, Smith would become a crucial part of New York’s emergent punk sound. She rubbed shoulders with the likes of Blondie, Talking Heads and Television, and together, this scene would reset the course of culture like those who had inspired them in the 1960s did. Naturally, this game-changing success would see the most prominent CBGB-affiliated acts enter the inner sanctum and befriend their heroes.

In 1975, when The Patti Smith Group were playing a couple of nights at New York’s iconic small venue, The Bitter End, a key player in the story of the city’s music, she met Bob Dylan. It was an unbelievable reality despite her recent successes. Dylan was there at Davis’ suggestion, which was still remarkable for the famously awkward musician, who did what he wanted when he wanted.

Smith could tell something was different in the venue that night: the air had changed, and the crowd was more animated than she had expected. “There was an electricity in that room,” she recalled to the Bob Dylan Centre. She went backstage, and it was him. Dylan entered the room, playfully asking if there were any poets to be found back there. Smith, doing her best to stay calm, responded that she hated poetry. “I acted like a teenage boy when he sees the girl that he likes come in, and he… acts like he doesn’t like her.” This bravado was fine, though. Dylan was used to it. She added: “Everything I said, he seemed to think was funny.”

They had their pictures taken, and Smith couldn’t quite believe what was happening all those years after standing outside a Philadelphia record shop waiting for her copy of Blonde on Blonde, but there she was singing with him. That was the start of a long friendship, and they would then briefly tour together in 1995. She added, “It just shows ya how life can unfold in the most beautiful, unexpected way.”

Watch Smith discuss her friendship with Dylan below.