Horses (40th Anniversary - 2015 Remastered) Patti Smith

• 1Gloria05:54
• 2Redondo Beach03:24
• 3Birdland09:14
• 4Free Money03:50
• 5Kimberly04:25
• 6Break It Up04:00
• 7Land09:26
• 8Elegie02:41
• Total Runtime42:54

Info for Horses (40th Anniversary - 2015 Remastered)

With the exception of Bob Dylan, few rock n' rollers explored poetry within the rock format as thoroughly as Patti Smith. By the mid-70's, Smith had been a regular poetry-reader in New York City clubs for years, and with a deep admiration for The Rolling Stones, it was only natural to set these poems to music. With an exciting rock band to back her up (including renowned music critic Lenny Kaye on guitar), Smith built up a following on the strength of the band's trance-inducing live shows and her thrillingly liberated vocal style, which built on Dylan's mid '60s expressiveness with ecstatic, octave-jumping yelps.

Produced by ex-Velvet Underground bassist John Cale, „Horses“ was considered 'punk rock' when it was first released, but there was much more to it. Smith had a gift for being able to paint vivid pictures with her prose, as evidenced by a pair of 10-minute long epics, 'Birdland' and 'Land' (which consisted of 3 sections--'Horses,' 'Land of A Thousand Dances,' and 'La Mer'). Other tracks are more conventional, yet just as gripping--a cover of 'Gloria,' 'Free Money,' and 'Kimberly,“. „Horses“ is a classic.

„It isn't hard to make the case for Patti Smith as a punk rock progenitor based on her debut album, which anticipated the new wave by a year or so: the simple, crudely played rock & roll, featuring Lenny Kaye's rudimentary guitar work, the anarchic spirit of Smith's vocals, and the emotional and imaginative nature of her lyrics -- all prefigure the coming movement as it evolved on both sides of the Atlantic. Smith is a rock critic's dream, a poet as steeped in '60s garage rock as she is in French Symbolism; 'Land' carries on from the Doors' 'The End,' marking her as a successor to Jim Morrison, while the borrowed choruses of 'Gloria' and 'Land of a Thousand Dances' are more in tune with the era of sampling than they were in the '70s. Producer John Cale respected Smith's primitivism in a way that later producers did not, and the loose, improvisatory song structures worked with her free verse to create something like a new spoken word/musical art form: Horses was a hybrid, the sound of a post-Beat poet, as she put it, 'dancing around to the simple rock & roll song.“ (William Ruhlmann, AMG)

Patti Smith, vocals, guitar
Jay Dee Daugherty, drums
Lenny Kaye, guitar, bass guitar, vocals
Ivan Kral, bass, guitar, vocals
Richard Sohl, keyboards

Recorded 1975 at Electric Lady Studios in New York City, New York
Produced by John Cale

Digitally remastered

Patti Smith
Part-Punk, Part-Folk, but 100% rockstar, Patti Smith has proven herself to be an enduring legend within Rock & Roll. For her work as an early pioneer of the punk movement, Patti Smith was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2007. Also an author and an activist, Patti Smith maintains a relatively low profile, but still performs and records. Patti Smith tour dates are currently scheduled nationally. Use Eventful as your Patti Smith concert calendar.

The Chicago native moved to New York City in 1967 with no money and survived through near impoverished conditions to become a rock icon. After cultivating her poetic craft on the streets of New York City and Paris, Smith began to perform rock music in 1974 and was signed by Clive Davis in 1975. She released her debut album, Horses, in 1975 and started a musical revolution. Smith was at the forefront of the punk movement and was a frequent performer at the legendary CBGB. Smith released her biggest commercial success, Easter, in 1978; the album included the massively successful single "Because of the Night", and Smith toured aggressively.

Smith remained largely out of the spotlight in the '80s, preferring to raise her kids outside of the limelight. She reemerged in the mid-90s with Peace in Noise (1997) and Gung Ho (2000), both of which earned her Grammy nominations for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance. In 2006, Smith returned to where it all began and performed a near four-hour concert at CBGB the night that the iconic club closed down. Smith has returned her attention to writing and won a National Book Award for her memoir, Just Kids, in 2010. Patti Smith is a rock legend whose music spans punk, folk, and politics.

This album contains no booklet.