atti Smith is a singer, songwriter, and poet who was born on December 30, 1946 in Chicago, Illinois. She won an art scholarship to Glassboro State Teachers College after growing up in New Jersey. In 1967, she moved to New York City where she became involved in the downtown Manhattan arts scene and began performing with the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. Her poetry readings soon incorporated musical elements, and from 1971, Smith regularly worked with Lenny Kaye, a guitarist and critic. By 1973, they had formed a band called "Horses" and began performing widely in the downtown club scene.

Smith's mesmerizing charisma, chantlike but compelling musical declamation, visionary lyrics, and simple yet ingenious rock music quickly gained her a dedicated fanbase. Her early work includes songs like "Lonely People" and "People Who Can't Do What I Can." She continued to write and perform throughout the decades and released several albums, including "Horses," "Dream Horse," and "Mood Dog." Her music has been praised for its poetic lyrics and emotional intensity.

In the 1960s, Joan Jett began her music career as a singer in the band The Runaways. She later signed to Arista Records and released her first album, Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, in 1975. The album was produced by Welsh avant-gardist John Cale and cofounder Lou Reed of the Velvet Underground, and it replicated her live shows better than any subsequent LP.

During the 1970s, some of Jett's albums moved towards a more commercial direction and featured a pounding big beat that bludgeoned away some of her subtlety. Her concerts also became sloppy and undisciplined. After releasing Radio Ethiopia (1976), she released her most commercially successful album, Easter, in 1978. It included a hit single, "Because the Night," written with Bruce Springsteen.

Following the album Wave in 1979, Smith disbanded her group and retired to Detroit, Michigan, where she raised a family with Fred Smith, founder of the band MC5. Jett continued to work in music as a solo artist and performed in various venues around the world. In 2003, she released an album called I Love Rock 'n Roll: Joan Jett at the Grammy Museum Live in L.A.

Jett has sold over 30 million records worldwide and is considered one of the most influential female musicians in rock music. Her legacy continues to inspire new generations of musicians and fans alike.

Smith's comeback began in earnest after his sudden death from a heart attack in 1994 and she released two albums, Gone Again (1996) and Peace and Noise (1997), followed by Gung Ho (2000). In the 21st century, Smith continued releasing new records, including Banga (2012). Her late work demonstrated her strength as an artist, with a renewed focus on the old fire without her extreme excesses. She also collaborated with the international sound-art group Soundwalk Collective for a trilogy of albums: The Peyote Dance (2019), Mummer Love (2019), and Peradam (2020).

In 2010, Smith published her memoir Just Kids, which focused on her relationship with Mapplethorpe. The critically acclaimed work won the National Book Award for nonfiction. Her other memoirs include M Train (2015), which chronicles her travel experiences, and Year of the Monkey (2019), which features some of her photographs.

2017) is an installment in Yale University Press’s Why I Write series. Smith later published A Book of Days (2022), which was inspired by her Instagram account. In 2016, she accepted Bob Dylan's Nobel Prize for Literature on his behalf. Although she never topped the charts, Smith precipitated punk rock in New York City, London, Los Angeles, and other cities. A pioneer in the fusion of the bohemian sensibility with rock, she was able to translate the incantatory power of Beat writers such as Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs into the rock mainstream. In 2007, Smith was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She was named Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters by France's Ministry of Culture in 2005, and in 2011, the Royal Swedish Academy of Music awarded her the Polar Music Prize for her contributions to music and art.

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