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Patti Smith: Twelve

(Columbia)

Patricia Lee Smith is peerless. She’s made a career out of an impressive tightrope walk between conjuring mystic sorceress and streetwise boho punk poetess with perfect duality: never sacrificing either side of coin, never selling out. Smith has contemplated a covers album since 1978, she admits in the revelatory liner notes, where she explains song by song what went into choosing each track on Twelve. Smith’s always had an interesting relationship with covers. See her fire-and-venom take on the Who’s “My Generation,” retooled preemptively for the punk generation, and the refiguring of the snotty garage standard “Hey Joe” with an added ode to Patty Hearst and a nod to feminist power. A recent clip making the rounds on YouTube is a long-lost gem of Smith appearing on the otherwise square 1980s ABC children’s show Kids Are People, Too, where she takes the sappy ballad “You Light Up My Life” and turns it inside out in a striking performance, reanimating it with all the majick that Debby Boone drained from it. For all the due she gets as visionary writer in the rock-and-roll lexicon, she’s far less recognized as one of the music’s most potent interpreters. So, Twelve is really long overdue.

The first thing that hit me upon hearing the immaculately recorded collection of songs is that Smith’s voice has lost none of its power. I mean nothing. Her stunning voice is as magnificent and powerful as it was in 1975 and, yes, perhaps even richer. As Ms. Smith is now on the other side of 60, it’s just further evidence of her greatness. Still, nobody’s perfect, not even Patti, and Twelve is marred with a pointless version of Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” and an unsatisfying take on Stevie Wonder’s “Passtime Paradise.” Of the 12 on Twelve, those are the only real clunkers. A chilling take on the Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” rates with the original as guest guitarist Tom Verlaine nails Richards’ spooky, open-E-tuned rhythm part. Smith—who is joined by usual co-conspirators guitarist Lenny Kaye, bassist Jay Dee Daugherty and drummer Tony Shanahan—made some fitting if obvious picks, channeling Jim Morrison’s shamanism on “Soul Kitchen” and doing Dylan with a solid “Changing of the Guards.” The most interesting moments prove to be ones you’d least expect: Who would peg Smith an Allmans fan? Not me, but she gets “Midnight Rider” right on her own terms. Likewise, Tears For Fears 1980s pop nugget “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” is given greater gravity by Smith’s notable stance on varied global politics. And there’s little doubt that Kurt Cobain would love this version of “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” which reverts to spooky old Americana complete with banjo and fiddle.