Synopses & Reviews
Before The Sex Pistols, before The Clash, before The Ramones, there was PattiGodmother of punk Drawing on sources in music, literature, and art, as well as all-new interviews with those close to the poet laureate of punk Patti Smith, the story of her debut album, Horses, is put into its full context: from the singers early days to her rapid rise on New Yorks performance art scene and the key role she played in the emerging art-punk movement at CBGBs. Patti Smith burst onto a vacuous music scene in the mid-1970s with a raw and revolutionary soundsteeped as much in French symbolist poetry as it was in 1960s garage rockand an indelible, gender-bending stage persona. With the release of Horses, rock music would simply never be the same. This remarkable book demonstrates the influence Smith and her music continue to exert today in the work of luminaries such as Morrissey, Michael Stipe, and PJ Harvey, and is the unforgettable story of a landmark album, the new rock aesthetic that it brought about, and how Patti Smith became the most influential female rock n roller of all time.
Review
"A rhetorical thoroughbred that positively charges through its 250 pages." The Word
Review
"Rock criticism at its most engrossing and ambitious." Record Collector
Review
"A vibrant account . . . Paytress writes with dancing, vigorous rhythm." Metro London
About the Author
Mark Paytress is a renowned music journalist for such publications as the Guardian, MOJO, and Q. His other books include BowieStyle, I Was There: Gigs that Changed the World, Siouxsie and the Banshees: The Authorised Biography, and Vicious: The Art of Dying Young.