Patti Smith announces new release of "Twelve" rock classics

On April 24th Columbia Records will release Twelve, an album of classic songs newly interpreted by 2007 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Patti Smith. Twelve features collaborations with an assortment of guest artists including playwright Sam Shepard on banjo, early 60s Greenwich Village folk artists John Cohen and Peter Stampfel, Red Hot Chili Peppers' bassist Flea and the Black Crowes' Rich Robinson. With the help of these artists, Patti Smith and her band cover a range of songs from the rock & roll cannon including works from Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Neil Young, Tears for Fears, the Doors, Nirvana, Jefferson Airplane, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Allman Brothers and Paul Simon.

While her groundbreaking vision of "three chord rock merged with the power of the word" has ensured her place in rock & roll history, Patti Smith has, throughout her career, developed a reputation as one of pop music's foremost interpreters, visiting the songs of other musical artists and transforming them through the lens of her own understanding, appreciation and imagination. Beginning with her first single, "Hey Joe," in 1974 and her extrapolations of Van Morrison's "Gloria" and Chris Kenner's "Land of 1,000 Dances" on her seminal Horses album in 1975 through her live performances of songs ranging from "You Light Up My Life" to "My Generation" to her new album, Twelve, Patti Smith continues to reshape popular music's classic source materials and make them her own.