Not Fade Away

IVAN KRÁL

AS a refugee in America, Ivan Král seemed ideally suited to the Patti Smith Group. “Ivan fit in perfectly, because all of us were slightly o›eat and felt somehow alienated from the mainstream of society,” Smith told journalist Dave Thompson. “Ivan was a part of what we were as a group.”

Anticipating the Soviet invasion, Král and his family had relocated to New York from their native Czechoslovakia in 1966. His musical career began in the early ’70s, as guitarist in glam-leaning bands Luger and Spike, before a brief sojourn in LA to back Shaun Cassidy. Král passed through an early incarnation of Blondie in late 1974, but soon found a more permanent home with Patti Smith. His versatility proved a key asset as he alternated between bass and guitar on Smith’s 1975 debut , on which he co-wrote “Birdland” and “Kimberly”. Král remained throughout , and , co-creating some of Smith’s most memorable songs, among them “Dancing Barefoot”, “Pissing In A River”, “Ask