What I've Learned From Robert Mabel Thorpe: Life or Art

I met Patti Smith at Electric Lady Studios, the studio in New York’s Greenwich Village opened by Jimi Hendrix a few weeks before he died, and she immediately walked me down to the basement level to show me the original murals—psychedelic, space-themed—that Hendrix had commissioned for the walls. She had first seen them in 1970, at the studio’s opening, when, before she was a well-known artist and the “godmother of punk rock,” she bumped into Hendrix on the staircase. “He stopped and talked to me and told me that he was also shy,” she says. “We talked about his vision for the studio.” Five years later, she recorded the groundbreaking album Horses in Studio A. “It was beautiful but heartbreaking when we started recording to realize that he had such visions for the studio and never got to realize them.”

Our initial plan was to do our interview in Studio A, but a miscommunication meant that it was already occupied by a film crew, so we instead went upstairs to a much smaller room, where Patti sat on a brown leather couch and I planted myself on an office chair opposite her. We sat there in conversation for two hours, and most of the time I was just thinking, “I’m sitting with Patti Smith, I’m sitting with Patti Smith,” breaking every so often in an attempt to produce a smart-enough question. 

Confined to her home during the pandemic, Patti started publishing on Substack to serialize a story, “The Melting,” and then began sharing poetry, songs, audio notes, and videos where she read to her subscribers and shared memories. “It kept me engaged with the people in the world.” Once she was free to tour again, she shot video on her iPhone to take her subscribers backstage with her band. She also performed a concert from Studio A that was livestreamed for her subscribers. Her Substack is her only online presence other than Instagram, where, at her daughter’s urging, she opened an account and now has more than 1 million followers. 

She’s 76 years old but still rocking hard, as demonstrated by her energetic birthday performance at Brooklyn Steel. In this conversation, I ask her about how being an artist in 2023 compares to 1973, and how she views this current moment in culture. We talked about building things up versus tearing things down, about friends loved and lost, and about living with gratitude. The opening line from Hendrix’s epic song “1983… (A Merman I Should Turn to Be)” has become something like a mantra for Patti: “Hooray, I wake from yesterday.”

Hooray indeed.

https://pattismith.substack.com/ 

Show notes

Subscribe to Patti Smith on Substack

You can also find Patti on Instagram

[03:37] Meeting Jimi Hendrix

[10:28] Learning to write

[12:18] Transcribing with Lenny Kaye 

[14:40] Lost loved ones

[15:53] Friendship at its best

[25:09] Writing The Melting

[20:01] Trying Twitter, then Instagram

[36:31] Taking subscribers behind the scenes

[38:56] Being an artist in 1973

[41:46] Patti’s “not so secret” goal

[44:09] On Picasso and social media

[57:00] On being misrepresented in the media

[59:06] Still mourning John Lennon

[1:02:23] Contributing something of quality

The Active Voice is a podcast hosted by Hamish McKenzie, featuring weekly conversations with writers about how the internet is affecting the way they live and write. It is produced by Hanne Winarsky, with audio engineering by Seven Morris, content production by Hannah Ray, and production support from Bailey Richardson. All artwork is by Joro Chen, and music is by Phelps & Munro.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit post.substack.com