Patti Smith Gets Spiritual

Patti Smith will release her ninth album, Trampin', on April 27th. The ten-song set, Smith's first for Columbia, features ten new Smith songs along with a cover of the Marian Anderson staple that provides the album's title, a song that features Smith's daughter Jesse on piano.

Trampin' features the same band that has backed Smith since 1996, though two alumni, guitarist Lenny Kaye and drummer Jay Dee Daugherty, date back to her 1975 classic Horses. Smith's heroes are evident on the set: "In My Blakean Year" is a self-explanatory tribute to the great poet, while Mahatma Gandhi is honored in an improvisational piece. And her outspoken activism can be found on cuts like "Radio Baghdad."

"I feel that on this record, Patti's confidence and maturity as a performer are at the forefront," Kaye told Rolling Stone. "There are vocal performances here -- and this is coming from somebody who has watched her sing for three decades -- that she's never come close to having on record before. Maybe she'd get them on the odd night in some Midwestern town, far from any tape machine. But there are things that happened on this record that raised the hairs on my arm."

Trampin' track list:

Jubilee
Mother Rose
Stride of the Mind
Cartwheels
Gandhi
Trespasses
My Blakean Year
Cash
Peaceable Kingdom
Radio Baghdad
Trampin'

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Song Stories

“Oh Sherrie”

Steve Perry | 1984

Steve Perry's girlfriend Sherrie Swafford was actually in the studio when Perry began writing this song--his lone Top Ten hit as a solo act--with two co-writers. The trio began at midnight one night with just "Oh, Sherrie!" and "hold on, hold on." Three hours later, they had a complete song. Swafford, however, had to wait until the next day to hear it. "Sherrie actually got tired and went to bed," Perry said. She also appeared in the video, but their relationship did not hold on for long.

More Song Stories entries »

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