Sex. Death. Divinity. Violence. Grief. Money. Family. Art. Defiance. Ecstasy. Transfiguration. Dancing. Destruction. Rock ’n’ roll conjoined to singular visions.
They were all essential to “Horses,” Patti Smith’s debut album, which was released on Nov. 10, 1975. It was the first full-fledged, major-label album to emerge from the tiny but explosive New York City scene that coalesced at a proudly scuzzy Bowery bar, CBGB. Television, the band led by the guitarist, singer and songwriter Tom Verlaine — Smith’s sometime boyfriend — had discovered the venue and inaugurated the scene with its early gigs; Smith brought her fledgling band there soon afterward.
Smith had emerged in the early 1970s as a poet with a vivid stage presence.
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