DORATI INSPIRES PATTI - PUNK DISCOVERS DSO

By Dave Zurawik - Detroit Free Press - 13 May 1979

This story will move in PST or Patti Smith Time, as opposed to DST or Daylight Savings Time that most of the rest of us move in.

Four p.m.

Twenty chairs. Two pitchers of ice water. Paper cups. A pot of coffee. Ashtrays.

Press conference time.

Only there's just one member of the press present in the Mason Room of the Radisson Hotel, and the stars of the press conference are nowhere around.

Patti Smith and Fred "Sonic"Smith. No relation. Their topic: the benefit concerts they are doing Thursday (at 7:30 p.m. at U-M Dearborn) and Friday (at 7:30 p.m. at the Punch and Judy Theatre in Grosse Pointe Farms) on behalf of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

Strange combination, the Smiths and the DSO. She is a poet turned rock performer who has all but been canonized in the pop music columns of the New York Times. He is a songwriter-guitarist who has been compared to Bob Dylan and Chuck Berry by Rolling Stone editor Dave Marsh.

When Fred played with the rock-revolution oriented MC5, he used to pose for pictures with a bandolier over his shoulder. Her current band is called the Patti Smith Group; his is Sonic's Rendezvous band. The term most often used to describe their music and onstage demeanor is "punk" - a raucous style of musical theatrics currently trying to broaden its appeal. They think that image is misunderstood and maligned by the straight world.

The Smiths live together in Detroit now and say they want to do something to help the symphony. They said they wanted to talk about it, too. But it is 4:30 p.m., they are nowhere around, and someone says it's time to clear the Mason Room.

It seems like time to give up when someone at the front desk presents a schedule that shows the press conference was actually scheduled for 3 p.m. And then someone else says, "nobody's been in that room all afternoon."

Four forty-five.

The phone rings. It is Fred Smith. He asks where you are. You tell him you are on your way.

When you arrive back at the Mason Room, you apologize for being late. You are starting to get into the swing of Smith Time. You also act as though it is perfectly normal to be conducting this private interview in a roomful of empty chairs with a long speakers' table at the front.

Fred explains casually that there never was a press conference scheduled. They just booked the room because they thought it would be a good place for the interview.

The confusion about all of it shows, and after a while Patti says, "Hey, listen it's just the three of us. And we feel like talking about the symphony and the benefits. So relax. Okay?"

It's reassuring, since the Patti Smith of her press notices can be a little intimidating. She underlines every other point with references to writers like Baudelaire and Rimbaud. If you haven't kept up on your French Romantic poets, you can feel a little inadequate.

The most reassuring thing about the statement from Patti, though, is that when she speaks she sounds more like Laverne De Fazio telling Richie Cunningham to loosen up than someone delivering an admonishment. There is a warmth there.

So, a couple of press-conference-style questions about the benefits are tried even though the real question is how she's managing to look so cool in this room without air conditioning while the temperature outside is pushing 90.

She's wearing a little cross at her neck, a black sweater that girls wore in the '50's, black skirt, black stockings and black slippers. If it weren't for the big smile she flashes Fred from time to time, you'd think you were talking to someone in a French convent.

Fred and Patti are talking about what moved them to perform on behalf of the symphony.

Patti: Detroit's my home. (She's actually from New Jersey). I'd never been to a symphony performance. I love classical music. But it always seemed inaccessible. And then we started watching the Beethoven series on television and listening to Dorati talk.

"It became something that we started looking forward to every week. We started looking forward to that the way we might have looked forward to a Rolling Stones concert. I mean, listening to the music and Dorati talk and ignoring E.G. Marshall.

"He (Dorati) reminded me of John Paul I, so gentle. He just makes me feel good. There was nothing elitist about it. He had this dignity and grace.

"Having lived in New York where the orchestra is very aggressive and flamboyant, there was something inspiring for me about the way Dorati presented the symphony.

"And, having gone to see the symphony several times since, we feel like there's a nice cross section in the audience – working class people. I don't feel like I'm at the Chicago Opera.

"Hey, we just want to help support the symphony and get more people to share the experience of listening to the symphony play."

Fred: "There are a lot of people exactly like us … people who have stayed away from the symphony because they didn't understand it. Once they hear it, they love it – young people, moved by that 100 piece orchestra – they love it, they just are not sure how to deal with it. It's image. Like you said, some people who don't know have always thought about symphonies as elitist institutions."

Patti: "Yeah, there's confusion over image. People have weird concepts. I'm sure some symphony supporters think of us as something out of 'West Side Story,' where we all wear leather jackets and carry switchblades. (Aside to Fred) we do have some of those, don't we?"

From here on, Patti and Fred begin a pattern of defecting more personal questions with statements that lead back to their support of the symphony, which leads to the conclusion that maybe they knew exactly what they were doing wen they termed this a press conference as opposed to an interview.

Patti is asked why she gave up New York for Detroit.

Patti: "I had an offer I couldn't refuse (shared laughter with Fred). No, there are a lot of reasons. Mainly personal, though, which I don't really want to…"

Fred: Just say she didn't choose Detroit because of the Renaissance Center" (more shared laughter).

Patti: "You seek as much energy as possible. So when I say how moved I was by Dorati and the symphony, that is not a light comment. I mean it in the same sense as Rimbaud or Jimi Hendrix. It opened up a whole new field of experience for us, listening to the music. And when you look at a guy like Dorati – stature, youth, balance, energy, light …You asked about burning out in relation to rock. How about Dorati? He's never burned out. You seek energy experiences.

Specifically, we keep from burning out the way Beethoven did, 'by throwing ice water on our heads every morning.' At least that's what Beethoven did, according to Dorati. He said that."

When asked if either of them can remember anyone inspiring them as much as Dorati seems to have, Fred says, "Ziggy Vincenti, my guitar teacher when I was 11. And there are certain similarities between the impact both he and Dorati have had on me. " Patti says. "I think it would have to be Mr. Smith, my old clarinet teacher."

Fred: By the way we were invited to meet the maestro Friday after his concert. We think it's quite an honor (the meeting was subsequently canceled by Dorati, reportedly for reasons that had nothing to do with either Smith)."

When asked if they were aware going into the benefits that the press could hardly resist playing off the sensationalism of artists termed "punk" performing on behalf of the symphony, both said they were aware of that likelihood and that it didn't bother them.

Patti, though, responds to a question about critics with, "People should be professional. Baudelaire said the critic's role is to open peoples' eyes. Today, they're more like gossip columnists."

A few moments later, when asked if she doesn't like all critics or just some, she says, "I didn't say I don't like critics. I think some abuse their role. I used to do some of that writing myself."

It is the kind of distinction she makes throughout the interview, which perhaps explains why she isn't interested in much that's written about her.

She makes another distinction when Fred is asked if all this thinking he and Patti do isn't at odds with the image he sometimes projects from the stage.

Patti: "I disagree with you very much about Fred's image on stage. I think he's capable of making even finer distinctions than me. And onstage I seem him as sort of a roadhouse Johnny Carson. A great sense of fun and humor."

Fred: "And the use of the term 'punk' in describing Patti, I see her performances more as dance and the good aspects of a piano concerto. Lily Tomlin."

Patti: "Listen, we're both big kidders. Ya know? You're like E.G. Marshall on the Dorati series, ya don't get any of the jokes. All this is about is that we care about the symphony a lot and want to help in our own way."

Fred: "Yeah, humor is a very serious thing."

Patti: "It's like Beethoven's Fifth. The da da da dum. It makes you laugh…Most great masterpieces make people laugh. Dorati does that with the orchestra; it just makes me bubble up. I stood in front of 'Guernica' (Picasso's painting of the Spanish Civil War) and started to bubble up in the same way. Call it God or whatever, there's a highest membrane in all of us that doesn't get pierced often enough. Sometimes it produces a twinkle in the eye, like with Dorati."

Fred: "It's a simple thing, and people don't seek the simple things in life often enough."

Patti: "It's the secret of being a kid. Hey, this is just all nice stuff we're talking about here. Not highbrow or anything. And this stuff gets back to the symphony."

Fred: "It makes you feel good, the music. It inspires you. It extracts this feeling out of you, and we want to help pay back the symphony for that enjoyment and lead other people to it who haven't experienced it."

Since Fred rises from his seat and says," thanks. Do you have enough?" much the way the UPI correspondent rises to end a presidential press conference, it seems safe to assume that this probably was a press conference and not an interview.

And since both Patti and Fred condemn newspaper stories that use pictures of them without calling them or getting pictures from them, a tentative photo appointment is set up for the next day and when they don't show up and can't be reached that next day, the conclusion is inescapable: they really wanted to make that appointment , but there was some confusion as to what noon we were dealing with, DST or PST.

This grew out of an e-mail exchange with Jason Gross and was featured in the November 1998 MC5 Tribute issue of Perfect Sound Forever

Sonic's Rendezvous

by Freddie Brooks

I first heard of the MC5 while a teenager and living in Texas. Got the Kick Out The Jams record and flipped. There was an address inside for the White Panther Party began corresponding (not with Fred) and soon opened a WPP chapter in Fort Worth. This attracted a tremendous amount of very negative attention from police and after a violent exchange and much harassment, left for Ann Arbor in 1972.

The WPP people were very down on the 5 for the split with Sinclair and High Time came out, which I felt to be their best album. But they got NO support from what had been their strongest fan base of and soon broke up. The people who supposedly loved the band the most had grown to despise them which I found extremely bizarre. I never saw the 5, except for videotape.

The first time I met Fred was when he began working with Scott Morgan. Scott had a single out that he wanted me to help promote and Fred had played on it. I was working with Gary Rasmussen's band Uprising and writing music reviews in the A2 Sun. I wrote some stuff about them and got them a gig opening for Uprising in Kalamazoo. There was no one in the Detroit area music biz who would give Fred & Scott the time of day. I remember one park concert in A2 that a terrible thunderstorm blew through before they got to play, toppling the sound system & cancelling the show. As Fred passed John Sinclair, John remarked that "it must not be in the stars". I know it was hard on him as he rebuilt a shattered career but he never complained about it and was always a gentleman.

He also was adament about moving forward with his life and, unlike other members of the band, he refused to trade on the MC5 name to further his own music. After seeing him and Scott performing at a bar in Detroit, I got involved and put together their debut A2 gig at the Chances Are (later renamed the Second Chance) in May of 1975. From there, Fred re-established himself as one of Detroit's greatest guitarists and the Sonic's Rendezvous legend grew to rival the MC5's.

Sonic's Rendezvous grew out of the Scott Morgan Group. As I said before, Fred was adament about starting without the constraints of the MC5 and refused to play any MC5 material. In retrospect, the end of the 5 must have taken it's toll on him and as he grew stronger and regained his bearings and confidence, he began to assert himself more creatively. He had the strongest vision of where he wanted to go, so he became the leader by example.

The rest of the band was roughly in the same shape as Fred. They all had been part of the Detroit rock explosion and as the bands broke up, many of the people who had embraced them on the way up, suddenly could care less about them as they returned to "earth". So the band members treated each other as real people rather than legends. Fred seemed to see himself as a regular guy and embraced that, with no star tripping whatsoever.

"City Slang" was recorded in late '77 and came out a year later, in late October or early November. There was no real money behind it and only word of mouth helped it become so influential. It became the band's signature by the response and was extremely powerful in live performance. As I have been working on remixing the track, it has become more and more apparent that it easily rivals the best of the MC5 stuff and is a true testimonial to Fred's artistic vision.

Unfortunately, the single was hampered by poor mastering and the actual pressing was pretty poor, as well. I think it will also be obvious how important Fred was to the MC5, since he was the only one to create music with that energy level after the band broke up. Even in 1998, "City Slang" sounds ahead of it's time.

My take on why the band "fell apart" is that Fred wanted to pursue his musical vision without the encumbrance of a band. While he had the image, and indeed was a high energy rocker, he had always written songs and appreciated many different types of music. Actually, the first time I saw him sing live he was doing Brian Wilson's "Help Me Rhonda". We spent many a night talking in the bar where he always loved to hear singers like Carmen McRae.

After the in-your-face chaos of the Iggy Pop tour, he began to experiment more with rich, textured songs like the hidden "China Fields" track from Sweet Nothing, and later manifested in the Dream of Life album. Also, Scott Morgan always seemed to resent the growing emphasis on Fred's songs. The underlying tension that once provided a creative spark had became tedious and Fred decided he didn't want to deal with it anymore. I believe he was also ready to begin work with Patti, and see what their collaboration might bring. He was a master musician, also playing saxophone and keyboards, and was keen to explore beyond what he was doing with the Rendezvous band. The reason it took so long for Dream of Life to emerge was that he was also interested in having a life beyond rock & roll. That included starting a family. After Jackson was born, he seemed ready to get on with it . By then, he and Patti seemed to have their methods of working together sorted out, as well.

One legacy of Sonic's Rendezvous was that they re-energized the Detroit music scene and brought it back to life. I remember sitting and talking with Fred about the lack of a music scene in Detroit in 1975 when he predicted the soon to be realized local music explosion. When they first began performing at Ann Arbor's Second Chance, there were no other original bands around. We were forced to use cover bands as opening acts but the Rendezvous shows became a gathering point for most creative music fans within 100 miles. About a year or so later, bands like the Romantics and Destroy All Monsters had mustered enough confidence to show their stuff and asked if they could do opening slots on Sonic's gigs. From that point on, the Detroit scene blossomed and it has continued to flower ever since.

The music business still seemed to regard Fred as a renegade (he was forced to share production of Dream of Life 10 years later with Jimmy Iovine) and there was never enough money available to record an album, so the Rendezvous legacy was built on live performance.

"Sonic" Smith was a true visionary and an artist of the highest order. His work with the MC5, with Sonic's Rendezvous and with Patti was always years ahead of it's time, and I'm certain he had more to give, had his time not run out. He never got the financial rewards that he richly deserved, yet he wasn't driven by the mere pursuit of wealth. Fred was always down to earth, the same person regardless of the amount of money in his pocket. He had a quick wit, a dry sense of humor, and a knack for bringing out the best in the people he worked with. You could have a long conversation with Fred only to later realize that he had probed most of your thoughts, yet he had not truly revealed many of his. He was a private person and I respected his secretive, mysterious manner. Someone wrote me recently and remarked that Fred was a real bodhisattva, a Buddhist term for one who has attained enlightenment, but who postpones Nirvana to help enlighten others. There could be some truth to that.

There is transcendent quality to much of Fred's later work that almost defies description, an almost spiritual richness. One local writer said that Fred's guitar playing somehow defined what living in Detroit means. The hundreds who turned out for his memorial would attest to that, proving he had truly touched the hearts of many. Fred had his faults, we all do. He didn't kiss ass and that pissed a lot of people off. He was also sharp enough to get his pilot's license and fly a plane, something I doubt those who now gossip about him could ever do. I feel fortunate to have had the privilege of knowing Fred "Sonic" Smith and sharing his all too brief time in this realm. Most of those who had real contact with him feel the same.

We miss you, Fred. Thanks for the memories.

Jackson Smith has been playing guitar on Patti Smith's extensive European tour which extends to roughly a dozen American dates in August. The following interview was conducted by Fred Mills and previously published in Detroit's Metro Times, prior to a 2004 tribute/benefit concert in memory of his father.

Smith on Smith

Jackson Smith talks childhood memories and the tribute to his pop

by Fred Mills - Metro Times (Detroit) - 1 December 2004

Utter the name Fred "Sonic" Smith and 99 out of 100 true rock fans will drop to their knees and genuflect. Despite his premature death on Nov. 4, 1994, at the age of 45, from heart failure, Smith's musical legacy — as firebrand guitarist for the MC5 and Sonic's Rendezvous Band and playing a key role on wife Patti Smith's 1988 album Dream Of Life — remains secure.

To celebrate that legacy and to mark the 10-year anniversary of Fred Smith's death, son Jackson Smith, also a guitarist has organized a tribute concert featuring the Sirens, Carolyn Striho, the Cyril Lords, Skeemin' NoGoods, the Grande Nationals, members of the Paybacks and, possibly, a very special guest. (Smith's own band, Back In Spades, just split up and won't be playing. Smith will be sitting in with a few bands.) In addition to selected MC5 and Rendezvous songs cropping up in the bands' sets, an end-of-show group jam on "City Slang," "Baby Won't Ya" and "Sister Anne" is also in the works. Proceeds will go to VH1's Save The Music Foundation.

Smith, 22, spoke candidly about his father, his father's music and his own distinctively un-regal upbringing as a child of true rock 'n' roll royalty.

METRO TIMES: What's your earliest memory of Fred? What did you do together as father and son?

JACKSON SMITH: Good question. One time when I was real young there was a basketball game going on, and I got all upset that I was too little to play in the game. My dad got all bummed out, and, according to my mom, he actually got weepy about it because he felt so bad for me. I also remember how my dad used to stay up late watching TV, and one night I challenged him to see who could stay up the latest. We stayed up all night — Nick at Night, I think. I ended up beating him! The sun was just coming up, and he said, "Ohhh, I gotta go to bed …" [laughs]

We played catch pretty often, and he'd come out with me when I'd be fishing. It was always a big moment when I caught a fish. And he was a trip to be in the car with! He was a big Formula One fan and he drove very fast — once in a while he'd pull up next to someone and challenge 'em to a race off the line!

MT: Was he an "advice" type of parent? Some fathers have words of wisdom for all occasions.

SMITH: Yeah, he was kind of funny about it too. I just remember him becoming this kind of "mountain of a man," like he was turning into John Wayne or something, and throw out these bits of advice: "You know … watch out …" Clichéd stuff, but just the way he would put it always struck me in the right place. I remember one time we were going out to eat and he meant it to be "the big talk," you know? But I don't think he really knew what to do and he was really kind of nervous about what to say. It was funny.

MT: How would you characterize Fred and Patti?

SMITH: My mom was very level-headed about things. She would definitely be the one who would give me the back of the hairbrush if I misbehaved. My dad would get on me too, but he was a little less strict than my mom. I wouldn't say they were real strict, though. They were there to guide my way. They were always sure I did my schoolwork.

MT: Did they try to get you into music? "Here, strum Daddy's guitar …"

SMITH: Well, there was music class in my school, but that would be more like singing in the school plays. I was really more into the arts, like painting and drawing, and they encouraged it. They never forced anything on me.

MT: And it wasn't until after Fred died that you found out about his history?

SMITH: That is for real. I remember at his memorial service I met the MC5 guys and I'm like, who are these guys? It's kind of an odd thing, I guess, but my dad and mom wanted me to have a normal as possible upbringing. I think it gave me a perspective on things, you know? When Dream Of Life came out I was only 5 years old, and I met Gary Rasmussen, who played bass, and Jay Dee Daugherty, who played drums, but they were just friends who also played music. Right after he died I see in the newspapers "Rock 'n' roll legend passes…" and I go, wait a second, is there a little more to Mommy and Daddy playing music than I knew? [laughs] There most certainly was!

MT: Did you then go back and start to investigate his music?

SMITH: When we [Patti, Jackson and sister Jesse] moved to New York I worked at a record store for a few years. I heard "City Slang" for the first time there, all these songs. And I'd think, oh, that's my dad, that's pretty cool. But more recently I've really tried to sit down and listen to the music as a whole and really see what's going on.

MT: What do you think of "The Jackson Song" from Dream Of Life?

SMITH: Oh, my parents put a lot of love into that song. When I was in high school and trying to be cool and just a regular teenage boy, my friends would be like [in mock-sarcastic voice] "Oh, I heard 'The Jackson Song!'" And, you know, it's all pretty and stuff …

MT: But not a tough, streetwalkin' cheetah kind of teenage rock song.

SMITH: Not at all. Actually I have tapes of my mom playing and she's about to do "The Jackson Song" and you can hear me in the audience yelling, "Don't play it!" [laughs] Now I definitely have more of an appreciation for that song.

MT: Dream Of Life is a really underrated album. A lot of people overlook Fred's involvement too.

SMITH: My dad pretty much wrote every single bit of music on that album. It was the '80s and with those production values — the huge snare drums — you gotta give it a little slack. But the music — a good song is "Going Under," one of the slower ones, and it has this Wes Montgomery thing going on at the end. That was him. You want to hear what Fred Smith was about musically, that's the record to listen to.

There's also [an unreleased] Rendezvous song called "American Boy." It starts out on a real jazzy progression, then he starts this guitar feedback, then he breaks out the saxophone, and by the end of the song it's fully rocking. Stuff like that, he just liked pushing the envelope musically.

MT: It would be great if he were around to see Dream Of Life's "People Have The Power" become such an anthem. It was the all-star grand finale at that massive concert in October …

SMITH: The "Vote For Change" concert. That's a song he really believed in. He would be proud of that, I know.

Source: http://www.metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=7045

AIN'T IT STRANGE

By Patti Smith - New York Times - 12 March 2007

On a cold morning in 1955, walking to Sunday school, I was drawn to the voice of Little Richard wailing "Tutti Frutti" from the interior of a local boy's makeshift clubhouse. So powerful was the connection that I let go of my mother's hand.

Rock 'n' roll. It drew me from my path to a sea of possibilities. It sheltered and shattered me, from the end of childhood through a painful adolescence. I had my first altercation with my father when the Rolling Stones made their debut on "The Ed Sullivan Show." Rock 'n' roll was mine to defend. It strengthened my hand and gave me a sense of tribe as I boarded a bus from South Jersey to freedom in 1967.

Rock 'n' roll, at that time, was a fusion of intimacies. Repression bloomed into rapture like raging weeds shooting through cracks in the cement. Our music provided a sense of communal activism. Our artists provoked our ascension into awareness as we ran amok in a frenzied state of grace.

My late husband, Fred Sonic Smith, then of Detroit's MC5, was a part of the brotherhood instrumental in forging a revolution: seeking to save the world with love and the electric guitar. He created aural autonomy yet did not have the constitution to survive all the complexities of existence.

Before he died, in the winter of 1994, he counseled me to continue working. He believed that one day I would be recognized for my efforts and though I protested, he quietly asked me to accept what was bestowed -- gracefully -- in his name.

Today I will join R.E.M., the Ronettes, Van Halen and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. On the eve of this event I asked myself many questions. Should an artist working within the revolutionary landscape of rock accept laurels from an institution? Should laurels be offered? Am I a worthy recipient?

I have wrestled with these questions and my conscience leads me back to Fred and those like him -- the maverick souls who may never be afforded such honors. Thus in his name I will accept with gratitude. Fred Sonic Smith was of the people, and I am none but him: one who has loved rock 'n' roll and crawled from the ranks to the stage, to salute history and plant seeds for the erratic magic landscape of the new guard.

Because its members will be the guardians of our cultural voice. The Internet is their CBGB. Their territory is global. They will dictate how they want to create and disseminate their work. They will, in time, make breathless changes in our political process. They have the technology to unite and create a new party, to be vigilant in their choice of candidates, unfettered by corporate pressure. Their potential power to form and reform is unprecedented.

Human history abounds with idealistic movements that rise, then fall in disarray. The children of light. The journey to the East. The summer of love. The season of grunge. But just as we seem to repeat our follies, we also abide.

Rock 'n' roll drew me from my mother's hand and led me to experience. In the end it was my neighbors who put everything in perspective. An approving nod from the old Italian woman who sells me pasta. A high five from the postman. An embrace from the notary and his wife. And a shout from the sanitation man driving down my street: "Hey, Patti, Hall of Fame. One for us."

I just smiled, and I noticed I was proud. One for the neighborhood. My parents. My band. One for Fred. And anybody else who wants to come along.

There's been a number of inquiries as to the five tracks featured on the main page; here's the lowdown.

As previously announced, a compilation of Fred Smith's unreleased and never heard recordings is under serious consideration. This isn't a commercial project, the sole purpose is to give greater insight into Fred's singular work as a guitarist and songwriter and to do so respectfully, each step with the express approval and direct cooperation of Jackson and Patti Smith.

Who, it should be understood, have no connection whatsover with any so-called "band-authorized" recordings or fictitous "official" website based on selling cheap t-shirts. It's no secret Fred disbanded the Sonic's Rendezvous group in 1980 and moved on with his life and other creative pursuits; given that fact, there is no longer any "band" or "official" anything to speak of. Enough said, case closed.

The mystery of discovery is of primary importance so there's no song titles listed, those who've followed Fred's musical explorations should recognize several of them as part of a work in progress. The five tracks currently posted online are but a minor sampling of the material available; new works will be rotated in sporadically.

This much we will share:

1) Except for the one track of "China Fields", all of the guitar work is Fred solo.

2) There's a version of City Slang with Scott Asheton's drum intro and the brief keyboard bit at the break; other than that, it's Fred's single resplendent rhythm guitar track, with no overdubs or effects whatsoever.

3) The other tracks might have a few things in common, but you can figure that one out.