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Art of Expression: the two rock stars Patti Smith could relate to

Sat 22 June 2024 14:00, UK

No one could mistake Patti Smith for anyone else. Though she drew inspiration from the New York underground rock scene, Smith captivated audiences the moment her debut album, Horses, was released. However, despite the supreme quality of much of her material, Smith believed she would have been nothing without the influence of Bob Dylan and Mick Jagger as her guides.

Then again, it’s not like Smith would be as tuneful as The Rolling Stones whenever she stepped up to the microphone. When putting her first band together, even they admitted that they were far from the greatest musicians in the world, but what they lacked in technical ability, they made up for in raw passion when it came to delivering takes on ‘Gloria’ or ‘Birdland’.

During the dawn of the British invasion, The Stones weren’t too far off from that kind of expression, either. There was no way that they were going to match what The Beatles had done, but they could still put together a decent blues shuffle and manage to sound a lot more dangerous than any other band in England because of how much attitude they put into every word.

If you look at Smith’s stage presence, you’ll see more than a little bit of Jagger’s animated personality as well. Unfortunately, there isn’t the duckwalk in Smith’s stage choreography, but both she and Jagger tend to feel like they are possessed by the music whenever they hit the stage, as if every riff is driving something out of them that needs to be unleashed.

But Smith was a poet first before being a rock star, and Dylan was no different. While Dylan famously claimed that he wanted to be a sideman for Little Richard as a kid, his true calling was to follow in the footsteps of Woody Guthrie whenever he sang. Regardless of whether you were getting the sarcastic Dylan or the authoritative Dylan, every line that he ever put on vinyl had to mean something more than just words on a page.

Although there were many phenomenal female artists around at the time, Smith said that both Jagger and Dylan gave her the confidence to become a frontwoman, telling David Fricke, “In terms of women I could relate to, there weren’t too many. I related to Lotte Lenya, but I related more to Bob Dylan. I love Billie Holiday, but as a performer, I related more to Mick Jagger.”

While Lenya and Holiday are both spellbinding performers, that’s not what Smith was looking to do all the time. Her music had a message whenever she performed, and with Jagger’s moves and Dylan’s knack for lyrics, half of her discography was designed to give their audience a musical epiphany whenever they sat down with one of her records.

She may have also taken cues from artists like Lou Reed, but in terms of her impact on rock culture, Smith stands alone as the middle ground between Jagger and Dylan. It was about delivering a performance, yes, but the minute that her feet hit the stage, she wasn’t just ready to sing. She was ready for war.