Patti Smith with neck brace. Photographed by Robert Mapplethorpe.
 
I remember seeing Patti Smith’s first performance on The Mike Douglas Show in 1977 and thinking how unexpectedly cool that show was. Just imagine how dumbstruck daytime TV viewers must have been seeing The Patti Smith Group popping up between episodes of As The World Turns and re-runs of Dobie Gillis. Hell, I was even blown away!

I actually had to go to a friend’s house to watch Patti on the Douglas show because I didn’t own a TV set. It was the first time I saw her perform live and it confirmed everything I imagined The Patti Smith Group would be: wild, inspired, unadulterated rock n’ roll. And part of what made this particular performance so bona fide is Patti and the band didn’t condescend to or mock the daytime TV format they were operating in. They put their hearts into it. Every fucking show mattered to them, whether it was sandwiched between soap operas or on the stage of legendary Manhattan punk clubs. Patti was a punk without the wiseass, holier-than-thou bullshit. She wanted to spread the rock gospel throughout the nation, from the Bowery to double-wides in middle America. Everybody was invited to the party.

The first half of the video was shot on December 7, 1976 and broadcast on January 19, 1977. The second half, with Patti in a neck brace, was aired on Apr 19, 1977. It was her first live appearance after falling 15 feet off a stage and breaking several neck vertebrae in Tampa Florida on January 23, 1977.

Thanks to Jim Laspesa at Bubbling Over who continues to unearth gems from his impressive video archive.

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