Patti Smith - Horses

It isn't hard to make the case for Patti Smith as a punk rock progenitor based on her debut album, which anticipated the new wave by a year or so: the simple, crudely played rock & roll, featuring Lenny Kaye's rudimentary guitar work, the anarchic spirit of Smith's vocals, and the emotional and imaginative nature of her lyrics -- all prefigure the coming movement as it evolved on both sides of the Atlantic. Smith is a rock critic's dream, a poet as steeped in '60s garage rock as she is in French Symbolism; "Land" carries on from the Doors' "The End," marking her as a successor to Jim Morrison, while the borrowed choruses of "Gloria" and "Land of a Thousand Dances" are more in tune with the era of sampling than they were in the '70s. Producer John Cale respected Smith's primitivism in a way that later producers did not, and the loose, improvisatory song structures worked with her free verse to create something like a new spoken word/musical art form: Horses was a hybrid, the sound of a post-Beat poet, as she put it, "dancing around to the simple rock & roll song." ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide

Name Credits Allen Lanier Keyboards, Guitar, Producer Bernie Kirsh Engineer, Mastering Bob Gruen Photography Bob Heimall Design Bob Irwin Mastering, Reissue Mastering Bob Ludwig Mastering Chuck Krall Photography Danny Fields Photography Edie Baskin Photography Frank d'Augusta Assistant Engineer Huey "Piano" Smith & the Clowns Inspiration Ivan Král Bass, Keyboards, Guitar, Vocals Jay Dee Daugherty Drums, Musical Consultant John Cale Bass, Producer Lenny Kaye Bass, Vocals, Guitar Patti Smith Liner Notes, Vocals, Guitar Richard Aaron Photography Richard Sohl Piano Robert Mapplethorpe Photography Sherri Whitmarsh Reissue Design, Design Tom Verlaine Guitar Vic Anesini Mastering