Easter is the third studio album by the Patti Smith Group, released in March 1978 on Arista Records (see 1978 in music). Produced by Jimmy Iovine, it is regarded as the group’s commercial breakthrough, owing to the success of the single, “Because the Night” (co-written by Bruce Springsteen and Smith), which reached #13 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #5 in the UK.
The first album released since Smith had suffered a neck injury while touring for Radio Ethiopia, Easter has been called the most commercially accessible of the Patti Smith Group’s catalogue. Unlike its two predecessors, Easter incorporated a diversity of musical styles, though still including classic rock and roll (“25th Floor/High on Rebellion”, “Rock N Roll Nigger”), folk (“Ghost Dance”), spoken word (“Babelogue”) and pop music (“Because the Night”). Easter is the only 1970s album of Smith’s that does not feature Richard Sohl as part of the Patti Smith Group; in one interview at the time, Smith stated that Sohl was sick and this prevented him from participating in recording the album. Bruce Brody is credited as the keyboard player, Richard Sohl makes a guest appearance contributing keyboards to “Space Monkey”, along with Blue Öyster Cult keyboardist Allen Lanier. The cover photograph is by Lynn Goldsmith and liner notes photography by Cindy Black and Robert Mapplethorpe.
In addition to the religious allusion of its title, the album is replete with biblical and specifically Christian imagery. “Privilege (Set Me Free)” is taken from the British fame- and authoritarianism-satirizing film Privilege; its lyrics are adapted from Psalm 23. The LP insert reproduces a First Communion portrait of Frederic and Arthur Rimbaud, and Smith’s notes for the song “Easter” invoke Catholic imagery of baptism, communion and the blood of Christ. A solitary hand-drawn cross is placed below the group member credits on the sleeve insert, and the last sentence of the liner notes is a quote from Second Epistle to Timothy 4:7 — “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course…”
The album was highly acclaimed upon its release. Writing in Rolling Stone, Dave Marsh called the album “transcendent and fulfilled.” In Creem, Nick Tosches described it as “an album of Christian obsessions, especially those of death and resurrection”, and called it Smith’s “best work.” Lester Bangs, on the other hand, began his pan of the album, “Dear Patti, start the revolution without me.” Bangs contended that while Horses had changed his life, Easter “is just a very good album.” It listed number 14 in The Village Voice’s Pazz & Jop critics’ poll of the best albums of 1978, while NME magazine ranked the album 46th best of the year . (by wikipedia)
Patti Smith came back from the year-and-a-half break caused by her fall from a stage in January 1977 without having resolved the art-versus-commerce argument that had marred her second album, Radio Ethiopia. In fact, that argument was in some ways the theme of her third. Easter, produced by Bruce Springsteen associate Jimmy Iovine, was Smith’s most commercial-sounding effort yet and, due to the inclusion of Springsteen’s “Because the Night” (with Smith’s revised lyrics), a Top Ten hit, it became her biggest seller, staying in the charts more than five months and getting into the Top 20 LPs. But Smith hadn’t so much sold out as she had learned to use her poetic gifts within an album rock context. Certainly, a song that proclaimed, “Love is an angel disguised as lust/Here in our bed until the morning comes,” was pushing the limits of pop radio, and on “Babelogue,” Smith returned to her days of declaiming poetry on New York’s Lower East Side. That rant (significantly ending, “I have not sold my soul to God”) led into the provocative “Rock n Roll Nigger,” a charged rocker with a chorus that went, “Outside of society/Is where I want to be.” Smith made the theme from the ’60s British rock movie Privilege her own and even got into the U.K. charts with it. And on songs like “25th Floor,” Iovine, Smith, and her group were able to accommodate both the urge to rock out and the need to expound. So, Easter turned out to be the best compromise Smith achieved between her artistic and commercial aspirations. (by William Ruhlmann)
Personnel:
Bruce Brody (keyboards, synthesizer)
Jay Dee Daugherty (drums, percussion)
Lenny Kaye (guitar, bass, vocals)
Ivan Kral (bass, vocals, guitar)
Patti Smith – vocals, guitar
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John Paul Fetta (bass on 01. + 07.)
Allen Lanier (keyboards on 02.)
Jim Maxwell (bagpipes on 11.)
Andi Ostrowe (percussion on o4.)
Richard Sohl (keyboards on 02.)
Tracklist:
01. Till Victory (Smith/Kaye) 2.45
02. Space Monkey (Smith/Kral/Verlaine) 4.04
03. Because The Night (Smith/Springsteen) 3.32
04. Ghost Dance (Smith/Kaye) 4.40
05. Babelogue (Smith) 1.25
06. Rock N Roll Nigger (Smith/Kaye) 3.13
07. Privilege (Set Me Free) (London/Leander) 3.27
08. We Three (Smith) 4.19
09. 25th Floor (Smith/Kral) 4.01
10. High On Rebellion (Smith) 2.37
11. Easter (Smith/Daugherty) 6.15
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12. Godspeed (Smith/Kral) 6.09
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