Patti Smith and the book Just Kids

Monday 1 August 2011

Patti Smith was born in 1946 and she is an American singer-songwriter, poet and visual artist. She became an influential element of the New York City punk rock movement with her debut album Horses (1975). She is called the "Godmother of Punk" and her most famous and powerful song is "Because the Night". On November 17, 2010, she won the National Book Award for her memoir Just Kids, a book I highly recommend as it is about the life of this woman and her lover, the famous photographer Richard Mapplethorpe. It starts in the Summer when Coltrane died and when she met Robert, but the book is a wonderful testimony of the end of the 60's and beginning of the 70's in New York. Do not miss this moving story of youth and friendship.