Twelve

Description

Despite the passage of time and a career spanning three decades that many wild women envy, Patti Smith has remained more of a poet than a rocker. However, when the bard of New York mythology, who emerged during the new wave era, takes on the catalog of musicians with mostly electric and sacred choruses, she has nothing to be ashamed of. As one might expect, Patti Smith and her band (led by the excellent Lenny Kaye) claim classics like Are You Experienced? (Jimi Hendrix), Helpless (Neil Young), or White Rabbit (Jefferson Airplane) as if they had always been part of their repertoire. Where the card shuffler goes even further is when she transforms Within You Without You by the Beatles into a velvet-like litany, transcends the immense Everybody Wants To Rule The World by the supposedly lightweight Tears For Fears, or takes Pastime Paradise by Stevie Wonder to unexpected heights. A true lesson.