Patti Smith first graced the pages of Interview way-back-when in 1972. Glenn O’Brien ecstatically noted the appearance of Patti’s latest very-limited-edition book of poems Seventh Heaven (“$1 at better stores”), describing the authoress as “badder than Barbara Stanwyck as Belle Starr,” and Robert Mapplethorpe, then her boyfriend, now elevated to the role of official photographer, Polaroided Patti wearing nothing but a diaper and a dishtowel. Now, one can’t open Times, Newsweek, Vogue, et al. without running into Patti’s ain’t-I-bad image, always framed by an ecstatic review of her premiere rock ‘n’ roll record, Horses, released by Clive Davis’s hot Artista label. So, for old times’ sake, Interview presents poetess-with-the-mostest, Patti Smith, interviewed by Maxime de Falaise McKendry, who way-back-when, along with her late husband, John McKendry, sponsored Patti Smith poetry readings in the British Colonial drawing room.

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John McKendry and I first met Patti Smith five or six years ago when she and Robert Mapplethorpe shared a ramshackle loft on 23rd street not far from Chelsea Hotel. Originally divided into two separate spaces, they had broken a big, jagged hole through the partition, much to the landlord’s fury. Robert had the front area, its amazing neatness seeming almost prim beside the erotic content of his assemblages. Through the gaping hole one stepped into Patti’s quarters: darker than Robert’s, dusty, seemingly full of rags as though nothing really mattered, except the Hermes typewriter and the sheaves of paper on the large, unmade bed.

MAXIME DE LA FALAISE MCKENDRY: Do you remember that funny loft, Patti?

PATTI SMITH: Whenever I pass by I still get a pang. It was the longest home I ever had.

FALAISE MCKENDRY: I always think of you as being in total darkness there.

SMITH: It’s true. One time the electricity was out and there was this long piece I was writing. I had some kind of fever and I had all these candles lit and I was drinking rum and I got drunk and my manuscript caught fire in the typewriter and the first thing I did was grab the rum and it went, “Vroom!”

FALAISE MCKENDRY: Robert was always going into his back room and coming out very chic. I don’t know how he managed.

SMITH: It was like the two sides of the track: Robert’s side had all the jewels and I had all the stray cats and stray boys.

FALAISE MCKENDRY: And John used to come visit you all the time.

SMITH: John was the first classy person I ever met. The thing is that any sophistication I have, aesthetically, comes from Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. In the ’60s I never missed an issue even if I had to steal to get them. I come from a real working class background and I didn’t know anyone sophisticated—except I saw Edie Sedgewick once at the Art Museum in Philly. She had these black leotards and little black pumps and this big ermine cape and all these white dogs and black sunglasses and black eyes. She was classy! That’s what I though about John when I first met him. I could always count on him having silk shirts and a Cartier watch. John really changed us. When we first met him we were completely poverty-stricken. I was selling little drawings here and there and I’d go all day on two jelly donuts and a cup of coffee. I was crazy about John because he always talked about rock ‘n’ roll in the same way he would about Steiglitz or Georgia O’Keefe. I mean, I’m still trying to make people understand that I really equate Mick Jagger and Rimbaud. I’ll do a reading they’ll say, “You’re doing too much rock ‘n’ roll,” and then I’ll sing and they’ll say, “You’re not enough rock ‘n’ roll.” But to me they’re all the same thing. It depends on the rhythm of the moment.