Patti Smith

I was at the award ceremony for the 2011 Polar Music Prize which was given to Patti Smith and the Kronus Quartet, two great musical forces.

There were touching performances by swedish artists, several young women, who interpreted Patti’s songs, most notably the young female duo ’’First Aid Kit’’ who cast a sort of magical spell over the whole concert hall. It’s amazing how a couple of voices and one simple acoustic guitar can express such emotion.

I was extremely moved by Patti Smith’s thank-you speech, she talked from the heart, exposing a  rawness and an honesty that is so rare and when one is in the presence of such a person who really believes in the good of humanity and the power of love and can express that in a poetic, natural way, it really grips my heart. Many of her songs are both rough and sensitive at the same time, which corresponds with her whole personality and her tomboy look, that was so iconised in the seventies. She is in many ways New York cool in its most authentic form. I left the ceremony feeling energised and inspired, thank-you Patti!

I’m curious to buy her book ’Just Kids’ about her life with Robert Mapplethorpe, it won the  National Book Award last year. Patti Smith was once a bookstore clerk herself and in an interview with the NY Times she said: “I dreamed of having a book of my own, of writing one that I could put on a shelf. Please, no matter how we advance technologically, please don’t abandon the book. There is nothing in our material world more beautiful than the book.”

Aaah if only there were more time to read………