Patricia Lee Smith Patti Smith, born December 30, 1946 in Chicago, USA, is a singer and rock musician, poet and writer .
Marrying beat poetry with the garage rock of the 1960s and 1970s, she is considered the "godmother" of the punk movement.
Born in Chicago to an Irish-born family, Patricia grew up in Pitman, a small town in southern New Jersey. His father is a former tap dancer who became an office worker in a factory and his mother abandoned a career as a jazz singer to raise her four children as a waitress at a restaurant. As a teenager, Patti stands out from the very religious education of her mother, Jehovah's Witness. Graduated from Deptford Township High School in 1964, she entered the Normal School to become a teacher.
When she becomes pregnant at 18, she is struck off and has to work.