Patti Smith and Allen Ginsberg performed their music and poetry for a packed house in a special benefit performance for Jewel Heart at the University of Michigan’s Hill Auditorium on Good Friday. Jewel Heart is an organization "dedicated to preserving the endangered Tibetan culture and to Tibetan Buddhist studies and the practice of this rich tradition in contemporary life." The event was organized by Jewel Heart founder and spiritual director Kyabje Gelek Rinpoche, an incarnate Lama of the Drepung Monastery.
The atmosphere inside and around Hill auditorium was electric--as it should be when two cultural legends are appearing together on stage. Even so, while I was at the display table outside the auditorium gazing covetously at the posters and books signed by the two luminaries, I overheard one woman asking, "Who is Patti Smith?" A tattooed woman in charge of the wares explained that Patti was a poet and rock star of the ‘70s. I corrected her: "Patti Smith IS a goddess." I bought a poster signed by both Patti and Ginsberg, as well as a signed copy of Woolgathering, the smallest book I’ve ever seen (it’s 2.5" x 4").
Rich and I then entered the auditorium, took our seats in the THIRD row, and looked around. The auditorium itself is beautifully ornate, but on top of this, Jewel Heart had hung a huge, brilliantly-colored and sequined Tibetan tapestry across the back of the stage, laid elegant carpets on the floor of the stage, and draped silk scarves over the music stands and podiums. They had also provided a beautifully upholstered chair for Allen Ginsberg; he referred to it as a throne.
The show began at around 8:30 pm, when MC Allen Ginsberg introduced Diane Seuss-Brakeman, winner of Jewel Heart Poetry Contest. She read her winning poems--first "It Blows You Hollow" then "Morels"--both of which were strikingly original and beautiful. (She won both first and second place in the contest.)
When Ms. Seuss-Brakeman left the stage, Ginsberg began an epic introduction of Patti Smith. I taped the entire show, so this is what he said:
When we think of poetry and music, Patti Smith was one of the pioneers of spoken poetry music, spoken poetry going into song. As a young person, she was hanging around with some very interesting people like Robert Mapplethorpe and William Burroughs, who she knew. Theirs is a long friendship that goes on to this day. She pioneered that combination of music and poetry which has caught fire among the younger generation now . . . to the point where a lot of older folks including myself learned from her how to put the two together or were inspired by her to try and put them together in the form of ballads or spoken poetry with musical accompaniment in the back. So she’s actually a real pioneer that’s shown a generation younger than herself and generations older than herself, quite an accomplishment for a poet. In the ‘80s she married, withdrew, like Rimbaud, to the Africa of family life--not selling guns to King Menelek, but raising a couple of kids, one of whom is now a musician who played with her actually. She toured most recently with Bob Dylan. . . . I heard the concerts in Boston and in the Beacon Theatre in New York, and what was really amazing was that she pushed herself further and improvised a great deal onstage, like [the old?] poets are supposed to do. She just finished long sessions, mostly this year, [for] a new album just complete yesterday, I think, or two days ago--it was completed this last week--with Lenny Kaye, who will be accompanying her, as well as Gary Rasmussen.
Ginsberg then went on to introduce the band:
Kaye has been working with her and occasionally with Jim Carroll and many young poets, musicians. Gary Rasmussen will be with her. A bass player from here, he plays now with the Mike Caton band and Scot Morgan, also toured with Iggy Pop and Patti Smith a couple of years, for the Dream of Life album in the mid 80s. He goes back to the 60s Rainbow People’s Party front band. I think John Madison, who is responsible for a lot of the organization this evening, will be playing viola with her--he did in the sound check. There’s also Oliver Ray, a sort of cherubic-looking poet with a skull cap. [He] will be sitting in on acoustic guitar. He’s a poet and also quite an amazing mind. So . . .
At this moment, Patti peeked around the edge of the drapery behind Ginsberg, looking at him in a way that said, "Are you ever going to finish introducing me?" The audience (including me) was laughing hysterically--Ginsberg oblivious as to the reason why. Patti disappeared again behind the drapery . . . then appeared again, sticking her head out underneath it just as Ginsberg concluded.
Patti walked on stage, her graying hair in two messy pigtails, wearing a green jacket over a yellow T-shirt, black men’s pants tied at the waist with a string, and army boots--untied, of course. She still looks like a teenager, gray hair and all. She said, "Thank you Allen, thank you everyone. He’s a rough act to follow, even introducing you. Well, it’s a beautiful full moon out there, and thanks all of you for . . . it’s very nice to spend Good Friday with you."
She immediately launched into a poem about the "perfect moon" (sound clip #1, 366KB), almost chanting the lines--hypnotically, rhythmically, building to a crescendo at the end. It was absolutely stunning . . . and when she finished, the auditorium was deadly quiet. Not one person clapped or made any sound at all. Patti said, "That was for the moon. The moon does not need to applaud. The moon just smiles down." She looked around the room and asked, "So you doin’ all right tonight? Everybody fine?" Now everyone applauded, loudly. Patti asked, "Was that for me?"
She then read "cowboy truths" from Woolgathering. For me, the highlight of this piece was when she sang, in the corniest, most nasal, country-western twang possible, the lines, "Careful how you bare yer soul / careful not to bare it all."
Oliver Ray then came on stage and Patti introduced him. This guy has a wonderful stage presence--he looks like he can’t be older than 25, and he barely said a word during the entire performance, but he seemed so comfortable before an audience and with Patti that his presence just radiated from the stage.
Oliver’s appearance marked one of my favorite moments in the show, because he and Patti had to re-situate the microphones in order to perform their duet, in which both of them would play acoustic guitar. They spent a good five minutes moving chairs and microphones around so that Oliver would have a stool and mic for his guitar, and Patti would have a stool and two microphones. It went on long enough that Patti said, "I’m sorry," like a little kid apologizing for errors during her first recital; at another point during the process, Patti remarked, "There should be some comedy show that’ll give us a break" (sound clip #2, 31.6KB). She was right--it really was funny. They ended up sitting on opposite sides of the stage, and there wasn’t one person in the auditorium, including Patti and Oliver, who wasn’t aware of how silly it looked for a duet. Patti, getting settled with her guitar, observed, "Well . . . now I can’t watch his hands to see where my hands are supposed to go."
Once they got everything situated, they played a slow and haunting song I’d never heard until this night (sound clip #3, 493KB). It wasn’t the most powerful song of the evening, mainly because Patti was sitting, but it was still incredibly exciting for me to hear Patti sing live for the very first time. Her voice is extraordinary. I think, after her "retirement," her voice is even better than it was before, and I am genuinely amazed. When they finished, and the applause subsided, Patti explained, "Obviously I never pioneered in technical microphone arrangement."
Patti then Introduced Gary Rasmussen and Lenny Kaye. While they were getting set up, she said, "I wanna read a little poem for William Burroughs . . . It’s called ‘South 23rd Revisited.’" I don’t know which of her works this poem comes from, but it is one any person who knows Mr. "language is a virus" Burroughs (whether they like him or not) would have to appreciate. It begins, "The Word is his shepherd. . . ."
Patti followed up the Burroughs poem with "Walking Blind," a song Oliver Ray wrote for the Dead Man Walking soundtrack (sound clip #4, 294KB). To me, this was when the show really got rolling. With Oliver and Kaye on acoustic guitars and Rasmussen on bass, Patti stood before a microphone off center stage--and since my seat was off to the side, I could see her especially well. For me, this song was almost a mystical experience. Patti never danced around, or even moved away from the microphone stand, during the entire performance. But with this song I saw why so many people consider Patti Smith to be one of the greatest rock performers in history. She seemed to go into a trance. Her movements were minimal, almost like I would picture a shaman in a healing ritual: she closed her eyes, threw her head back, and shook her hands in the air, her foot thumping out the rhythm that might otherwise be supplied by a drum. Ahhh--it was magical. The crowd went wild when the song was finished.
Patti shifted gears again, and when she approached the microphone, people in the audience started whistling like birds at her. She looked toward the ceiling, laughing, like she was watching the birds . . . and in a flash she was reciting "People Have the Power"--without music (sound clip #5, 233KB). Oh my god--this was fantastic. WOW!!! The tension in the audience hit a peak at the end of this with a HUGE roar of applause.
"Ghost Dance" came next (sound clip #6, 359KB), and it was absolutely incredible! This song has always been one of my favorites, but this performance blew the recorded version off the planet. As in "Walking Blind," Patti seemed to enter a trance--in fact, she seemed to be almost in an ecstatic state. I was also greatly impressed by Lenny Kaye, who provided the backing vocals. This performance was the first time I had seen him, and as a fan of both Patti Smith and Jim Carroll, I thought it was a real treat.
After "Ghost Dance," Patti asked Oliver to get her some water, then introduced her next spoken-word piece: "This is a little poem I wrote for Fred a long time ago; it’s called ‘Thread.’" This is a poem from Babel, and it seemed like Patti got a little choked up while reading it. I sort of liked the "domestic" imagery.
Oliver returned with a glass of water, and Patti introduced the next song. "This little song Lenny and I did for our new record that’s comin’ out soon, and this song is for Oliver," she said. I don’t know what the title of this one is--it was just Lenny Kaye and Patti on acoustic guitars (sound clip #7, 315KB)--but I wasn’t especially impressed by it (again, it may have been because Patti was sitting). I was more impressed by the sidelights. Not having a third chair to sit on, Oliver lay down on his back on the stage to listen to the song--his leisure was interrupted only when Patti had to borrow a guitar pick from him. Patti and Lenny also made a false start, which was really funny. They began playing the song, and Patti kept looking up at Lenny. Finally, she stopped and asked what happened. "Technical difficulties," she said to the audience, and she asked Lenny why he kept looking at her funny. Lenny said there was nothing wrong except (walking over to her) she needed to sit closer to the microphone. He adjusted the mic for Patti’s guitar, and they started over. At the very end of the song, Patti’s guitar pick broke in half. She was looking for it inside her guitar, but I know where it is. It landed about two feet in front of her, right next to the monitor. I snagged it after the show.
Patti put aside her guitar and approached the microphone at the front/side of the stage . . . and immediately kicked over the glass of water Oliver had brought her. She said something about electrocution, but I kept thinking that it must be time for her to remove her shoes and do "Dancing Barefoot." That’s not what happened though. Instead, the following exchange took place (sound clip #8, 243KB):
Patti: "I’d like to thank everyone for participating tonight. . . I’m grateful to be able to be a part of --a pure part of work, and it’s really a nice place to do it. I know Lenny just had a . . . Sadder?"Lenny: "Ah . . . Seder."
Patti: "Seder! (Laughs.) I have sadder, he has Seder. It’s like potata and potater . . . tomata and tomater."
The crowd was laughing so hard that I doubt many people caught the last part. But anyway, she continued: "And of course it’s a really beautiful week. I think the nicest thing about this week in terms of the New Testament is the end of Matthew when Jesus comes back and sees his disciples and he’s gonna go away, it seems at least physically for good, he says to them--they wanna know what they can do, and he says, ‘Take care of my people, just take care of my people. Take care of my people, and remember that I am with you always even unto the end of the world.’ Whatever one’s faith or god is, it’s always nice to think that, and I’d like to think that the people of Jewel Heart are always in their very beautiful, modest way, attempting to be with us always."
She then read "indian rubies" from Woolgathering, which I thought has some evocative imagery of loss and memory. The central image is a ruby, "Imperfect, beautiful like faceted blood," and she says, "It came from India where they wash up on the shore. Thousands of them--the beads of sorrow." Even though she lost this ruby, she looked at it so often that she can still see it. Beautiful.
Patti moved directly into another great song, possibly my favorite of the evening--and, of course I don’t know the title ( sound clip #9, 273KB). At the end, Patti said, "That song was the last song Fred and I wrote together, and I thought it would be nice to do it for you all." This song was definitely one of the highlights of the show!
Patti read "art in heaven," from Woolgathering, then John Madison joined the ensemble onstage with his viola. They performed the last song in Patti’s set (sound clip #10, 487KB). It was beautiful, haunting, and the perfect song to end her show. The crowd gave her an extended standing ovation, but that was it . . . there was no encore. My only complaint about this terrific Patti Smith performance was that it just wasn’t long enough!
After a half-hour intermission, Allen Ginsberg took the stage, joined by Keith Orr on stand-up bass and John Madison on viola. Ginsberg played his squeezebox thingymabob and sang "Father Death" and "Do the Meditation Rock." Madison and Orr then left the stage, and Ginsberg "interviewed" Kyabje Gelek Rinpoche, the founder and spiritual director of Jewel Heart. After that, Ginsberg read "On Neal Cassady’s Ashes," a selection from "Memory Gardens," "After the Party," "We knowing Age," "Tuesday Morning," [Kapich?], "God," "Three American sentences, 1995," a haiku, the title of which I didn’t catch (I think it was in French), "Carl Solomon," "Piece About [It?]," "You know what I’m sayin’?," "Excrement," and "Bhul Song." John Madison and Keith Orr then return to the stage, joined by Lenny Kaye on electric guitar and Gary Rasmussen on bass. Ginsberg sang "Put Down Your Cigarette Rag," and concluded with "The Ballad of the Skeletons."
Ginsberg, Madison, Orr, Rasmussen, and Kay lined up across the front of the stage, held hands, and bowed repeatedly to the applause of an extremely excited crowd. I was excited as everyone else . . . but I wish Ginsberg had invited Patti and Oliver Ray out to join them!
Allen Ginsberg and Patti Smith gave a booksigning at the Shaman Drum book shop in Ann Arbor the following day (April 6) from 2-5pm.
Acknowledgement: Photographs by Bruce Giffen
Text & Design Copyright © Cassie Carter 1996