Lenny The Kaye

Wearing the hats of critic, musician, compiler, and producer over the course of his long career, Lenny Kaye is an undervalued contributor to the genesis of punk and alternative rock. As guitarist of the Patti Smith Group, Kaye's primitivist noise and capacity for loosely structured improvisation made him the perfect accompanist for punk pioneer Smith's earthy free-verse poetry. With his work assembling and annotating Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era 1965-1968, the seminal double-LP compilation of '60s garage rock and psychedelia, Kaye also united and ...