It was on Saturday, April 13, 2019 when stepping out of a matinee play at the Public Theater, I ran into a childhood friend, Deborah. She asked me if I was here for the Choir! Choir! Choir! event. I had no idea what she was referring to. She said, that these guys do these pop up events at various locations. They teach the crowd that show up vocal parts of selected song. They become a choir. They shoot these events and put them on their YouTube channel.
Well, it so happened that at this particular event, they had selected Patti Smith’s song “People Have the Power”. And because they were doing this at the Public Theater in NYC’s East Village, they were able to get Patti to come and sing the lead. And somehow they also got Stewart Copeland to come and play ‘percussion’ (if clanking on a miniature pot is one’s idea of percussion).
We had an hour or so to prepare. They taught various parts of the crowd different vocal parts, and at the end, when blended together, we would back up Patti. She showed up on time, as did Stewart. Light, camera, action. It was a really fun and spontaneous experience for me. I’m glad it just sort of happened and that I went in to the situation blind. And the funny thing is that I continually get people who find it on YouTube or social media and then ask me if this is me in the video. Oh, yes, it is me. And Patti is one of my favorite people in the world.
In addition to this experience back in 2019, I’ve had a few other interesting experiences that involve this great lady. Once was the summer of 1993, when I was working for Summerstage in Central Park. Patti had been on a lengthy break from show biz in order to raise her family in Detroit. She came out of this long time off at Summerstage with a poetry reading and a couple of songs. I was working back stage and it was great to see this icon live in such an intimate setting.
Cut to October of 2009 when my father bought me tickets to the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame 25th Anniversary Concert at Madison Square Garden. Patti performed with Bono and Bruce Springsteen. It was pretty amazing. She stumbled a few times with the beginning of Gloria, and Bruce helped her. With the thousands of people in the audience, I’ve no doubt she was very nervous and out of her element.
I was working at Sony Music in NYC those years and Patti was signed away from Arista and to Columbia Records. One time when I was in the Sky Lobby she walked in and was smiling and just saying hello to everyone. That stuck with me; what a present, open and friendly person she was. This was probably 2005, around the time of the 30th anniversary of Horses, her first album. Sony Music released a double CD titled Horses/Horses which included the original album plyus a recent live concert of her performing the album.
Because she was signed to Sony Music and because her designer at the company was my friend Gail Marowitz, I was invited to see Patti Smith perform back at Summerstage on August 4, 2005. It was a full concert with Patti, her son Jackson Smith, and Lenny Kaye.
And then there were the 2 stellar concerts that we attended at the Ulster Performing Arts Center in Kingston, NY. The first one, where I was moved to tears at one point, was on Saturday, November 11, 2023. And the 2nd time was on Saturday, November 16, 2024. I am looking forward to the next opportunity to see her live.
