Wayward: Fetching Tales from a Year on the Road

patti smith and my last night as a new yorker

I promoted Patti Smith’s albums from 1996 to 1998. I first met her while she was living in Detroit, shortly after the death of her husband Fred. She was just starting to poke her head up again as a full-time performer, not having released an album since 1988, a year during which I was still purchasing records from RATT. Expecting a simple record signing, I watched in amazement as hundreds of fans lined up for autographs and showered her with stories. I watched in equal shock as she drove up for the next day’s concert at Pine Knob Amphitheater, her band members and gear scrunched into a compact car that wasn’t fit to hold the contents of a dorm room, let alone the gear of a landmark group of rock pioneers.

It used to drive (then Arista label president) Clive Davis crazy that Patti wasn’t on mainstream radio or MTV. He’d slap me around for answers, because I was the poor soul who was supposed to get her music played alongside of Limp Bizkit. The biggest jewel in his Rock Crown, she was one of the few rock artists he had worked with that would engage him on a Whitney Houston Level, accepting his advice or encouragement. He liked to drop names like Springsteen and Dylan but I never got the feeling that those guys gave him the time of day, beyond a photo op and a signature on their royalty checks. Patti actually engaged him, even lauded him.

She was a bargaining chip he’d drop at every meeting with unsigned artists. “I’ve always let Patti Smith be the artist that she wants to be.”

Once snagged in his net, he’d tell the same artists to re-mix their singles, re-arrange their artwork and “ask” them to work with co-writers.  Not Patti. He would do anything to keep her, and to keep her happy. This is not to insinuate that she was just a bargaining chip for Clive – he would become incredibly alive when talking about her music, in a way that I didn’t always hear him talk about other artists on the label. Of course, these artists were Ace Of Base and Kenny G.

Patti was never under the illusion that she was going to get her music played next to Celine Dion or Bone Thuggs-N-Harmony. She didn’t have a manager and would call to check in herself. “Tom, how’s the song goin’? Are people playin’ it?” She always spoke in n’s and didja’s – she was never inclined to take the Madonna Speech Therapy Class. To a person who did not know her, they’d probably think that she worked in hardware store. Anyone who has spent time with her, though, will verify that she’s more astute and learned than most people with a doctorate. And not even close to a show-off about it.

“Patti on line one.” I had gotten somewhat used to the fact that she was calling me. She knew I was half her age, she knew I had my work cut out for me and she, above all, probably knew that I was the kind of guy who would not survive corporate culture. It wouldn’t have surprised her if I admitted that I’d have diarrhea on the days where I’d have meeting with the Senior Vice Presidents in my nice clothes. My shelf life was obvious to everyone – even I was surprised that I had lasted four years.

One day I fucked up. I had arranged for heritage rock station WXRT to record Patti’s show in Chicago – I’d venture to say that this recording might be the best live album never released, a double-disc of an artist and her band at their comeback prime. But recording this show had meant signatures, budgets and putting my ass on the line. I became so consumed with the politics that I had forgotten to tell one person the show was being recorded. Patti Smith.

She called me from the venue. “Why are there recording trucks here?” I realized, yes, I was that fucking stupid. I coughed up the truth and braced myself, the way a kid does when he has to tell a parent that he peed his pants at nine years old. I could hear her processing, taking a deep breath. “Do you understand why this makes me upset?” Then, for about ten minutes, she explained why it was important for me to have told her about this and what we could have done better if I had. I had expected the back of her hand and I was given a mom’s lesson instead.

It wouldn’t be the last time that I’d get a sit-down and it’s safe to say that I’ve learned almost everything about how an artist works from Patti Smith. Often by just being present when she was around.

For example, she always focused on the person she was talking to, even if it was half-in-the-bag fan gassing about a show in 1974. You meet few artists who can do this with any sort of sincerity, especially after they come offstage, high on adrenaline. Most hide - I don’t blame them. I wouldn’t know how to deal.

One particular time we were backstage at Lincoln Center, after she had just given a keynote speech during a convention for college students. We were talking about how it went when a loud blond elbowed her way into our conversation. “Just one second please”, Patti offered politely, sternly. She then turned her attention back to me, finishing the conversation. It didn’t matter that the loud blond was Courtney Love – she just wanted to finish who she was talking to. Diarrhea Boy.

Patti’s fans are devout and often romanticize her impact on the world, building her up to be some sort of faith healer. They definitely remember the moment that they first heard her, they certainly remember the first time they saw her live and they always tell the story about both. Many bear resemblance to the educators at Hogwarts School Of Witchcraft and Wizardry, a rag-tag group of post-punkers who have now gone grey and are no longer holding the mayo. They turn out in full force when she plays.

It seemed right that my last night as a New Yorker was Patti’s gig at Bowery Ballroom. The show is an annual event that happens on her birthday and feels like a coming-together for all of those folks who really used to go to Max’s Kansas City, who really used to paint at Chelsea Hotel and really screwed their way through the seventies.

At 61, Patti still puts on a hell of a gig. I found myself hanging in the back, smiling at the joy and enthusiasm of the witches and warlocks. I grinned as she spat on the stage between verses and as she let herself get caught up in the energy of her still-powerful band. I left before the end of the show, completely exhausted from packing up everything that I owned. I had seen what I needed to see and heard what I needed to hear.

A woman stopped me as I was walking out. “What’s the matta? You not diggin’ Patti?”

Oh yeah. I’m digging her.