"I'm so excited, but I gotta tell you, I'm really nervous," Patti Smith revealed as she took the stage at the San Francisco Bay Area Book Council, where the winsome black-clad poet-cum-singer was the featured speaker for a two-day annual confab of independent booksellers. Perhaps she felt a bit out of place. The trouble was, Complete, the oversized book of lyrics, diary snippets and 150 mostly unpublished photographs released late last month, was not published by a cool little indie mom-and-pop company, but rather by the mighty Doubleday.

To Smith's credit, she did not try to obscure the fact. Instead, she immediately pointed out that she was an anomaly at the festival and then told the adoring audience of 500-plus of her hardest-core fans, "I would never put out a book that was unworthy of your attention." Further apologizing, Smith confessed to the faithful, "It may be crass to be talking about something that's for sale, but I'm so really, really proud of this book."

During her hour-and-fifteen-minute presentation, she convinced the flinty-hearted among us that this was indeed a tome worth considering. Donning her wire-rimmed glasses, she lowered her girlish voice to a conspiratorial tone and shared some of the secrets behind a handful of songs from her seven albums -- and previewed a song from her not-yet-recorded eighth. After the confessionals, she recited the lyrics -- at times on the verge of breaking into the song -- and ultimately solved that particular dilemma by bringing her guitarist and frequent collaborator Oliver Ray on stage to perform some of her favorites, including "Dancing Barefoot," "Because the Night," "Southern Cross," "Farewell Reel" and a recent composition, "Blue Poles," inspired by a Jackson Pollack painting of the same name. She ended the set with "People Have the Power," the number she penned with her late husband, the MC5's Fred "Sonic" Smith. There wasn't a trace of sadness as she cajoled the crowd to sing along: "I really like it when everybody sings, and if you don't know the words, just make sounds."

In an earlier interview with the Rolling Stone Network, Smith herself made sounds about two of her more famous friends: Michael Stipe and Bob Dylan. When asked whether she thought she still functioned as a muse for Stipe, who recently published his own book about Smith, Two Times Intro: On the Road With Patti Smith, she demurred. "I think I'm more of a friend at this point. He has a new album out, and he told me I helped inspire one of his songs. But in a friend way, not as a muse. I think he has different muses, but I know he values me as a friend," she said. "I gave him some advice when he was working on his album, and he told me 'Walking Unafraid' came out of that advice. I actually saw him say that on TV, so I know it's true," she said with a trace of irony.

Smith was also very forthright about her relationship with her one-time hero Bob Dylan, with whom she toured with this past year. "With Michael I felt like an immediate friend; with Bob, well, he's a different kind of person. He's more like Fred ["Sonic" Smith], who has a certain kind of mystery with a certain dignity. He chooses when he wants to be open. But he can be -- just as Fred was -- extremely warm, but he can also be extremely distant. But I think my communication with him is good."

JAAN UHELSZKI
(November 9, 1998)