Patti Smith was in many ways the original punk rock chick. A ferociously inventive artist who was by turns political, inspired, overhyped and underrecognized, Smith came up in New York's fertile early '70s punk rock scene. She'd spent much of the '60s dabbling in the visual arts before she turned to poetry, teaming up with guitarist Lenny Kaye in the early '70s to produce spoken word pieces set to music. The collaboration eventually led to the formation of the Patti Smith Group. The...  [+]