"I need energy. I crave it. I give às. much as possible: I sing, I dance and I scream. And I have to get it back from the audience," said Patti Smith.

Patti Smith, the wild angel, the poet, the singer, the performer, the bad girl of rock 'n' roll. She's a New York cult at 29. Dylan slips in to see her shows.

י

She will bring her volcanic magle to Cleveland for the first time next week, playing the Agora Jan. 26 and 27.

"She seems destined to be the queen of rock 'n' roll," wrote Rolling Stone.

"The wild mustang of rock," said Village Voice.

But she only has one record, "Horses." Is this all a lot of hype?

Clive Davis of Arista records is rumored to have signed her without hearing or seeing her. (He had called for the opinion of four friends whose judgement he trusted.)

Patti Smith triggered the most electrifying box office response for a female rock performer since Janis Joplin, reported the Boston Globe. Fans lined up four abreast for 300 feet five hours before the show.

"Hype? I don't know how you define that word. Maybe something that is promoted that doesn't deserve to be. But we're not new. I've been performing for five years. I've worked hard. I think rock reviewers really like us," she said.

"What's wrong is that they are trying to find THE rock 'n' roll person of the '70s. It should be like the '60s, with room for all. The Stones, Jefferson Airplane, the Doors, Jimi Hendrix."

It's 2 in the afternoon and Pattl is in her hotel room in Boston, still wound up. She started writing about her favorIte rock groups, then had her poems first published in Creem Magazine in September, 1971.

"I was unaccepted by

other

publications or poets then. It was such a rush to see my stuff in print," she said. She now has two books published, "Seventh Heaven" and "Witt."

She wrote about such things as her dreams of Rimbaud, "compacted awareness," soul jive, being "without mother, gender or country," rape, "being caught like a squirrel on a high tension wire" and later, on her album, of the suicide of a girl at a lesbian beach.

-

Tough. But she's as fragile ás a flower in February.

"I was sickly. I had all sorts of childhood diseases, one after another, like scarlet fever and pneumonia and chicken pox. My body deserted me, but my mind soared. I had all kinds of visions. Like Dorothy in the 'Wizard of Oz.' Every day was a new book," she said.

"Today? I have to rest more. I really abused my body during my teen years. Most of us do. Discipline is so important. Mick Jagger is into yoga and vitamins. You have to be careful or you get wiped out."

She was born in Chicago in December, 1948, lived in Philadelphia in GI housing, moved to South Jersey near a swamp when she was 8. Her father was a factory worker, her mother & waitress.

STORM ADTOWA ve always been skinny, with bad

PATTI SMITH:

By Jane Scott

She worked in a Philadelphia factory in 110 degree heat, where her only escape was looking through a small portholetype window.

"I could see a convent and nuns walking by. This inspired my version of the song 'Gloria.' I even became a Catholic for a while," she said.

it'

She talks freely about her life. She studied art at Glassboro State Teacher's College, had a child, gave it up for adoption, wrote plays, acted, wrote for two movies shown at the Museum of Modern Art.

Ive

skin. But I was optimistic. Someone told me about the ugly duckling. I knew things would come full circle." she said.

"I had to learn to be a girl. Now I like my looks."

She got into the rock culture and stars such as Allen Lanier of the Blue Oyster Cult built up her self-confidence.

"We're working on a song, "Crown of Thorns," together. I'll put it out. The Cult* used two of my lyrics, 'Bad Ice Dog' and 'Career of Evil' on their second and third albums," she said.

Once they asked her to join their group, but she felt she was not skilled enough then.

"Now I'm too much into my own group," she said.

Her own group is Richard Sohl on plano ("he's the youngest, with the most technical experience"); Lenny Kaye, lead guitar ("he's got a master's in History and is more into sound than melody"}, Ivan Kral, guitar and bass ("he plays beautiful classical piano, he's from Czechoslovakla") and Jay Dee Daughtery, drums ("he's the newest and a big help").

"We're all into rock 'n' roll and love It," Patti Smith said. "I find it a high honor to be in rock 'n' roll."

Do some of her poems and songs shock?

"I think it is as wrong to deliberately try to shock as it is to deliberately not shock. You have to be honest and natural and speak as you feel," she said.

Some feel that it is strange for her to write about rape from a man's viewpoint or about loving women.

"'Gloria' is about a girl. People wonder if I am a lesbian. Basically I'm ■ writer and a writer has to be free of mind barriers and get into his characters. Was Hemmingway impotent because he wrote "The Sun Also Rises'?" she asked.

Her "Land" is the most violent, concerned with the death of an idol, Jimi Hendrix.

"And I recorded it at his Electric Lady Studios," Patti Smith said. She named her album 'Horses after James Walcott's review of her as a mustang. Tom Verlaine of Television played guitar on her "Break It Up," a song about the late Jim Morrison.

John Cale, pianist and bass with the early Velvet Underground, produced the

LP.

Patti Smith's career soared when she began to read poetry before rock acis. Her manager, Jane Friedman, had suggested this.

"We're spontaneous, we improvise, maybe the audience doesn't get all the words, but it's the feeling that counts," she said.

She hopes the Agora audiences will get up and move and even dance and join in.

"The worst thing is no response. I'd She's feet 7, weights 100 pounds. almost rather be clunked by a bottle," she Sliver-slim, said.