One in An Occasional Series on Most Influential Artists in Rock and Roll

Patti Smith, not be confused with another influential artist named Patty Smyth, is considered the "poet laureate of the punk movement." Her 1975 album, "Horses," was the junction pool of many tributaries of art, music and philosophy. The first song on the album, "Gloria," began with "Jesus died for someone's sins, but not mine."

She is another one of those great minds who never achieved commercial success, but whose disciples and acolytes, bands like R.E.M., MC5, Nirvana, sold millions of records. Her life was also her art, having had a long-time romance with the otherwise gay-as-a-goose Robert Mapplethorpe, marrying another musician with the same last name, dropping out of the scene to be a suburban housewife and raise her kids in a Detroit suburb, then being lured back on the road by R.E.M. and Bob Dylan, another fan, where she remains to this day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patti_Smith