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Greenwich Village And Patti Smith And The Vagaries of My You

Jay R. Adler | Massapequa,NY | 02/06/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"February 6, 2009

As a freshman at New York University in the 1960's I started tramping (slang for walking all over) the Village and that is where I gained exposure to the struggling young artists Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, Peter Paul and Mary, Tom Rush all of whom played the now shuttered folk clubs like the Cafe Wah, Gerdes Folk City and to the east, the Fillmore. You can never imagine how many kids and young adults went down to McDougal Street on a Saturday night, it resembled the Plaza de Toros in Madrid before a bullfight with everybody going down there for a combination of reasons always including the music. Patti Smith was in there starting to catch fire as an Andy Warhol type character because she certainly was a different hard rocker, appreciated by Bruce and Bob Dylan in a professional esteem. She was rebellious and heady and her signature song Because The Night was also performed by Bruce and is today a venerable classic. That song and Generation and Space Monkey are all on this CD and speak for Patti's sheer unmitigated ingenuity. Poetically to rock comparison in my view would be a cross between Allen Ginsburg and Tom Waits. Her sometimes contemptuous and iconoclastic attitude astoundingly wears well on her, she is without a doubt a rugged individualist of Rock. If you are purchasing this CD and are too young to remember Patti Smith that does not mean that you won't enjoy her material. I think, Patti, who is about my age can get a leg up on a lot of young bands today. She is a verifiable rocker.



Jay Adler, Music Critic"