Early performances In 1969, Smith went to Paris with her sister, and started
busking and doing performance art. She wrote several poems about Shepard and their relationship including "Sam Shepard: 9 Random Years (7 + 2)". On February 10, 1971, Smith, accompanied by
Lenny Kaye on electric guitar, opened for
Gerard Malanga, which was her first public poetry performance. Smith was briefly considered as lead singer for
Blue Öyster Cult. She contributed lyrics to several Blue Öyster Cult songs, including "Debbie Denise", which was inspired by her poems "In Remembrance of Debbie Denise", "Baby Ice Dog", "Career of Evil", "
Fire of Unknown Origin", "The Revenge of Vera Gemini", on which she performs duet vocals, and "Shooting Shark". At the time, she was romantically involved with
Allen Lanier, Blue Öyster Cult's keyboardist. During these years, Smith was also a rock music journalist, writing periodically for
Rolling Stone and
Creem. Later the same year, she performed "I Wake Up Screaming", a poem, on ''
The Whole Thing Started with Rock & Roll Now It's Out of Control'', an album by
The Doors'
Ray Manzarek.
1970s , during an interview in October 1976 In March 1975, the Patti Smith Group began a two-month weekend set of shows at
CBGB in New York City with the band
Television. The Patti Smith Group was spotted by
Clive Davis, who signed them to
Arista Records. Later that year, the Patti Smith Group recorded their debut album,
Horses, produced by
John Cale amid some tension. As punk rock grew in popularity, the Patti Smith Group toured the U.S. and Europe. The rawer sound of the group's second album,
Radio Ethiopia, reflected this. Considerably less accessible than
Horses,
Radio Ethiopia initially received poor reviews. However, several songs have stood the test of time, and Smith still performs them live. She has said that
Radio Ethiopia was influenced by the band
MC5. The injury required a period of rest and
physical therapy, during which she says she was able to reassess, reenergize, and reorganize her life. The Patti Smith Group produced two further albums.
Easter, released in 1978, was their most commercially successful record. It included the band's top single "
Because the Night", co-written with
Bruce Springsteen.
Wave (1979) was less successful, although the songs "
Frederick" and "
Dancing Barefoot" received commercial airplay. Through most of the 1980s, Patti lived with her family in
St. Clair Shores, Michigan, and was semi-retired from music. She ultimately moved back to New York City.
1980s–present , the famed New York City live music venue. , in June 2007 in
North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, in August 2014 In June 1988, Smith released the album
Dream of Life, which included the song "
People Have the Power".
Michael Stipe of
R.E.M. and
Allen Ginsberg, whom she had known since her early years in New York City, urged her return to live music and touring. She toured briefly with
Bob Dylan in December 1995, which is chronicled in a book of photographs by Stipe. The same year, she collaborated with Stipe on "
E-Bow the Letter", a song on R.E.M.'s
New Adventures in Hi-Fi, which she performed live with the band. After the release of
Gone Again, Smith recorded two further albums,
Peace and Noise in 1997, which included the single "
1959" about
China's invasion of Tibet, and
Gung Ho in 2000, which included songs about
Ho Chi Minh and Smith's late father. Smith was nominated for the
Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance for two songs, "1959" and "
Glitter in Their Eyes". The release of her comeback record was followed by publication of a box set of Smith's work remastered and packaged as
The Patti Smith Masters. In 2002, Smith released
Land (1975–2002), a two-CD compilation that includes a cover of
Prince's "
When Doves Cry". Smith's
solo art exhibition Strange Messenger was hosted at the
Andy Warhol Museum in
Pittsburgh on September 28, 2002. On April 27, 2004, Smith released ''
Trampin''', which included several songs about motherhood, partly in tribute to Smith's mother, who died two years earlier. It was her first album on
Columbia Records, which later became a
sister label to her
Arista Records, her previous label. Smith curated the
Meltdown festival in London on June 25, 2005, in which she performed
Horses live in its entirety for the first time. This live performance was released later in 2004 as
Horses/Horses. On October 15, 2006, Smith performed a 3½-hour
tour de force show to close out at
CBGB, which was an immensely influential New York City live music venue for much of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. At the CBGB show, Smith took the stage at 9:30 p.m. (EDT) and closed her show a few minutes after 1:00 am. Her final song was "Elegie", after which she read a list of
punk rock musicians and advocates who had died in the previous years, representing the last public song and words performed at the iconic venue. Smith's tenth full-length release
Twelve, an all-covers album released by Columbia Records, features such songs as Jimi Hendrix "
Are You Experienced?", Nirvana's "
Smells Like Teen Spirit", and Rolling Stones' "
Gimme Shelter". The next year, she came out with a live album,
The Coral Sea, in collaboration with
Kevin Shields. On September 10, 2009, after a week of smaller events and exhibitions in
Florence, Smith played an open-air concert at
Piazza Santa Croce, commemorating her performance in the same city 30 years earlier. Smith recorded a cover of
Buddy Holly's "
Words of Love" for the CD
Rave on Buddy Holly, a tribute album tied to Holly's 75th birthday, which was released June 28, 2011. She also recorded the song "Capitol Letter" for the
official soundtrack of the second film of the
Hunger Games series
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Smith's 11th studio album,
Banga, was released in June 2012.
American Songwriter wrote that, "These songs aren't as loud or frantic as those of her late 70s heyday, but they resonate just as boldly as she moans, chants, speaks and spits out lyrics with the grace and determination of
Muhammad Ali in his prime. It's not an easy listen—the vast majority of her music never has been—but if you're a fan and/or prepared for the challenge, this is as potent, heady and uncompromising as she has ever gotten, and with Smith's storied history as a musical maverick, that's saying plenty."
Metacritic awarded the album a score of 81, indicating "universal acclaim". Also in 2012, Smith recorded a cover of
Io come persona by Italian singer-songwriter
Giorgio Gaber. In 2015, Smith wrote "Aqua Teen Dream" to commemorate the series finale of
Aqua Teen Hunger Force. The vocal track was recorded in a hotel overlooking
Lerici's Bay of Poets. On September 26, 2015, Smith performed at the
American Museum of Tort Law convocation ceremony. On December 6, 2015, she made an appearance at the Paris show of
U2's
Innocence + Experience Tour, performing "
Bad" and "
People Have the Power" with U2. In 2016, Smith performed "People Have the Power" at
Riverside Church in Manhattan to celebrate the 20th anniversary of
Democracy Now, where she was joined by Michael Stipe. On December 10, 2016, Smith attended the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony in Stockholm on behalf of
Bob Dylan, winner of the
Nobel Prize in Literature, who could not be present due to prior commitments. After the official presentation speech for the literary prize by
Horace Engdahl, the perpetual secretary of the
Swedish Academy, Smith sang the Dylan song "
A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall". She incorrectly sang one verse, singing, "I saw the babe that was just bleedin'," and was momentarily unable to continue. After a brief apology, saying that she was nervous, she resumed the song and earned jubilant applause at its end. In August 2025, Smith announced the re-release of her debut album
Horses, slated to be released in October 2025 to celebrate the album’s 50th anniversary. The album features unreleased tracks, remasters, and original recordings of several songs from the original track list.
Art and writings In 1994, Smith began devoting time to what she terms "pure photography", a method of capturing still objects without using a flash. Smith participated in the DVD commentary for
Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters (2007), alongside
Todd Hanson,
Dana Snyder, and
Fred Armisen. From March 28 to June 22, 2008, the
Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain in Paris hosted a major exhibition of visual artwork titled
Land 250, drawn from pieces created by Smith between 1967 and 2007. In 2009, she contributed the introduction to
Jessica Lange's book
50 Photographs. In 2010, Smith's book
Just Kids was published, a memoir of her time in
Manhattan during the 1970s and her relationship with
Robert Mapplethorpe. The book won the
National Book Award for Nonfiction later that year. In 2018, a new edition of
Just Kids was published featuring additional photographs and illustrations. Smith also headlined a benefit concert headed by bandmate Tony Shanahan, for Court Tavern in
New Brunswick, New Jersey. In 2011, Smith announced the first museum exhibition of her photography in the U.S.,
Camera Solo. She named the project after a sign she saw in the abode of
Pope Celestine V, which translates as "a room of one's own", and which Smith felt best described her solitary method of photography. Also in 2011, Smith was working on a crime novel set in London. "I've been working on a detective story that starts at the
St Giles in the Fields church in London for the last two years", she told
NME, adding that she "loved detective stories" and was a fan of British fictional detective
Sherlock Holmes and U.S. crime author
Mickey Spillane in her youth. Smith collaborates with the experimental group
Soundwalk Collective on the ongoing project
Correspondences. The projects spans more than ten years of work, inspired by different geographies and natural environments. Soundwalk Collective's founder Stephan Crasneanscki has recorded sounds in remote places to uncover traces of history and environmental change, which he later shared with Smith to inspire her poetic response. Their collaboration began after a chance encounter on a plane and developed through ongoing correspondences on life and nature.
Correspondences explores themes such as the impact of seismic airguns on the oceans, the resilience of nature after the Chernobyl disaster, the anarchist visions of
Peter Kropotkin, and the final landscapes of
Pier Paolo Pasolini. In 2019, she released her book,
Year of the Monkey. "A captivating, redemptive chronicle of a year in which Smith looked intently into the abyss", stated
Kirkus Reviews. Smith third memoir,
Bread of Angels, was published in November 2025.
Film and TV appearances Smith made a cameo appearance in
Jean-Luc Godard's
Film Socialisme, which was first screened at the
Cannes Film Festival in 2010. She made her television acting debut at age 64 on the TV series
Law & Order: Criminal Intent, appearing in 2011 episode titled "Icarus". In 2017, Smith appeared as herself in
Song to Song opposite
Rooney Mara and
Ryan Gosling, directed by
Terrence Malick. She later made an appearance at the Detroit show of U2's The Joshua Tree 2017 tour and performed "Mothers of the Disappeared" with the band. Smith's 2018 concert-documentary film
Horses: Patti Smith and her Band, premiered at the 2018
Tribeca Film Festival. In addition, Smith narrated
Darren Aronofsky's VR experience
Spheres: Songs of Spacetime along with
Millie Bobby Brown and
Jessica Chastain. In January 2019, Smith's photographs were displayed at the
Diego Rivera gallery in the
San Francisco Art Institute and she performed at
The Fillmore in San Francisco. In 2024, Smith appeared as herself in
Turn in the Wound, a documentary by
Abel Ferrara about performance, poetry, music and the experience of people at war, focusing on life in
Kyiv since the beginning of the
Russian invasion of Ukraine. She composed the film's music and contributed poem reading of works by
Antonin Artaud,
René Daumal and
Arthur Rimbaud. It was premiered at the
74th Berlin International Film Festival on February 16, 2024.
Politics and activism In 1993, Smith contributed "Memorial Tribute (Live)" to the AIDS-benefit album
No Alternative. In the
2000 U.S. presidential election, Smith supported the
Green Party and backed
Ralph Nader. She led the crowd singing "
Over the Rainbow" and "
People Have the Power" at the campaign's rallies, and also performed at several of Nader's subsequent "
Democracy Rising" events. Smith was a speaker and singer at the first
protests against the Iraq War as U.S. President
George W. Bush spoke to the
United Nations General Assembly. Smith supported
Democratic candidate
John Kerry in the
2004 election.
Bruce Springsteen continued performing her "People Have the Power" at
Vote for Change campaign events. In the winter of 2004–2005, Smith toured again with Nader in a series of rallies against the
Iraq War and
called for the impeachment of Bush. In a 2009 interview, Smith stated that Kurnaz's family had contacted her and that she wrote a short preface for the book that Murat was writing, which was released in March 2008. Ten days after the murder of
Rachel Corrie in March 2003, Smith performed an anti-war concert at a
Austin, Texas venue, and subsequently wrote "Peaceable Kingdom", a song inspired by and dedicated to Corrie. In 2009, in her Meltdown concert in Festival Hall, she paid homage to the Iranians taking part in
post-election protests by saying "Where is My Vote?" in a version of the song "People Have the Power". In 2015, Smith appeared with Nader, spoke and performed the songs "Wing" and "People Have the Power" during the
American Museum of Tort Law convocation ceremony in
Winsted, Connecticut. In 2016, Smith spoke, read poetry, and performed several songs along with her daughter Jesse at Nader's
Breaking Through Power conference at
DAR Constitution Hall in
Washington, D.C. A long-time supporter of
Tibet House US, Smith performs annually at their benefit at
Carnegie Hall. In 2020, Smith contributed signed first-edition copies of her books to the Passages bookshop in
Portland, Oregon after the store's valuable first-edition and other books by various authors were stolen in a burglary. Smith regards
climate change as the predominant issue of our time, and performed at the opening of
COP26 in 2021. In May 2021, Patti Smith, signed an open letter calling for a
boycott of performances in
Israel. In a performance at the
Capitol Theatre (Port Chester, New York), she said: "I would be lying if I said I wasn't affected by what is happening in the world" referencing the
Russian invasion of Ukraine earlier that day. "This is what I heard in my sleep and goes through my head all day all night long like a tragic hit song. A raw translation of the
Ukrainian anthem that the people are singing through defiant tears", she wrote on
Instagram on March 6, 2022. ==Legacy==