This year’s Chicago Tribune Literary Award pays tribute to Patti Smith, a galvanizing artistic force for four decades. At the heart of New York’s downtown scene with the likes of Andy Warhol, Lou Reed, Sam Shepard, and Allen Ginsberg, Smith—all shaggy hair and hollow cheeks—mesmerized the avant-garde. Her debut album, Horses, was electrifying. Its raw energy changed music and poetry for good. "Just Kids," her gorgeous, stirring memoir of the era and her relationship with the late Robert Mapplethorpe, made people fall in love with Smith all over again. She is joined in conversation by the Chicago Tribune's music critic, Greg Kot.

This program is presented in partnership with the Chicago Tribune’s Printers Row series.

This program was recorded on November 1, 2014 as part of the 25th Anniversary Chicago Humanities Festival, Journeys: http://chf.to/2014Journeys

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