Patti Smith Marks Release of Bread of Angels With Intimate New York Performance
On a charged Election Night in New York City, Patti Smith took the stage at Manhattan’s Town Hall to introduce her new memoir, Bread of Angels. The November 4 event combined music, memory, and poetry in a format that only Smith could command, part concert, part storytelling, part communion with her devoted audience.
“I’m very happy that we’re all here together for a very auspicious day,” Smith told the crowd. “Out in the world, it’s Election Day, but within our little world, we’re just sorta independent from the rest of the world, just for a little while.”
For Smith, the date carried personal weight beyond politics. November 4 marks both the birthday of Robert Mapplethorpe, her late friend and collaborator, and the death anniversary of her husband, Fred “Sonic” Smith of MC5. “It’s a day of celebration and remembrance,” she said, “and knowing that I have the privilege of loving these two wonderful men.”
Bread of Angels revisits Smith’s early life and creative awakening, her upbringing with her siblings, her arrival in New York, and her immersion in poetry and punk during the 1970s. But its emotional center lies in the decades of grief and resilience that followed her retreat from stardom in 1980 to build a family in Michigan with Fred Smith.
She recounts the deaths of her husband, parents, and brother, and the small gestures that pulled her through loss. One particularly tender passage describes receiving a Valentine’s Day phone call from R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe, a stranger then, offering to be her valentine after Fred’s passing, “somewhat intoxicated,” as Stipe admitted. Another tells of Bruce Springsteen giving her young son his first motorcycle ride, fulfilling a promise Fred never got to keep.
Dressed characteristically in jeans and work boots, Smith balanced reverence with humor. “You’re probably noticing I took a lot of care in my attire,” she joked. “I’m a superstitious kind of writer. I wore this old Electric Lady T-shirt through writing the whole book, in many countries of the world. But I would like to say that I did wash my hair today.”
Throughout the evening, she intertwined readings with stripped-down performances. Her daughter Jesse Paris Smith accompanied her on piano for a reading inspired by Emily Dickinson, while longtime collaborators Lenny Kaye and Tony Shanahan joined for acoustic versions of “Ghost Dance” and “Because the Night.” Smith recalled how producer Jimmy Iovine slipped her a tape of Springsteen’s unfinished song during the sessions for Easter, a song she initially resisted recording until she heard it. “I wanted to write my own songs,” she said. “And I had this fucking hit staring me in the face.”
Smith also previewed her plans for a 50th anniversary celebration of her landmark 1975 debut, Horses. “I can still access the part of me who wrote those things,” she said. “I can’t say that I want to stay there, because I’ve evolved, but I still comprehend the energy.” Reflecting on the album’s epic closer, “Land,” she noted, “The things Johnny saw and was concerned about fifty years ago, they seem like baby sauce compared to what Johnny is going through now.”
Later, she read a passage from Bread of Angels reflecting on writer Yukio Mishima and “the lust for ascension.” “At times I mourn the worlds I knew,” she read. “The hopes of my generation, flowers in hair, dancing to the Dead, seeking a universal music, ‘the language of peace,’ as Jimi Hendrix would say.”
To close the night, Smith led the audience in singing “Happy Birthday” to Mapplethorpe before launching into a triumphant rendition of “People Have the Power.” Hours later, New York would elect a new mayor whose victory speech opened with a quote from Eugene Debs, a coincidence that made the moment feel almost prophetic.
