New Music: Patti Smith: "Gimme Shelter" (Rolling Stones cover) [MP3]
Seems like Patti Smith would've released her covers album by now. Since her full-length debut, 1975's tumultous Horses, Smith's reinventions of others' songs has-- along with her unhinged vocal style, and vivid poetry and lyrics-- greatly contributed to her canonization as one of New York punk's most vital and compelling characters: Her "Gloria" out-snarled Van Morrison's, and her "My Generation" deconstructed and recontextualized the Who's.
It's fitting, then, that she's marking her induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (which, incidentally, happens this evening) with Twelve, her first full-length covers LP. "Gimme Shelter", her re-envisioning of the Stones classic, isn't so different instrumentally from the original, but Smith's bluesy inflections, while hitting on Jagger's low-end growl, also retains her trademark inflection, chewing on the final syllables until they stretch and snap like bubblegum.
MP3: > Patti Smith: "Gimme Shelter" [Rolling Stones cover]
[from Twelve; due 04/24/07 on Columbia]