by Ray Rogers
In the ’80s, Patty Smyth was everywhere—“Goodbye to You,” “The Warrior,” a hit cover of Tom Waits’ “Downtown Train” all over FM radio and MTV, that singular voice, raw and gritty, cutting through everything around it. G.E. Smith, who was playing with Hall & Oates when her then-band, Scandal, opened some of those shows, would watch from the side of the stage. “Patty was great, both vocally and performance-wise,” he says. “A real rocker.” What he prizes in her singing hasn’t changed: “Power and feeling. You have to be born with that ability to convey real emotion in a vocal performance, and Patty just does it.”
On August 22, she joins Smith for his Portraits series at Guild Hall—stripped down, conversational, intimate in a way those arena-sized hits never had room for. Don’t expect the full-throttle versions you know by heart. You’ll get the bones of the songs, and the stories in them. Smyth plans to reach deeper into her catalog, too: “Maybe We Went Too Far,” from Scandal’s Warrior album, the one Eddie Van Halen loved enough to join her on the road—this from a man who once wanted her as his lead singer, an offer she declined. Smith has his own wish list: “Goodbye to You” and “Downtown Train.” He played on Waits’ original recording. “If they want to do it,” he says, “I’m ready.”
If you want to know who Smyth is beneath the anthems, her 2020 album, It’s About Time, makes a strong case. “Drive,” the record’s emotional center, began with a turned-over photograph—she and her sister, who were estranged for a few years—and grew into the song that brought them back together. “I found a picture of us,” she says, describing the line that unlocked the song. “When she heard it, my mom was like, you’re talking about Queens, you’re talking about Whitestone.” She knew exactly which street, which moment, which version of her daughters. When Smyth sent it to her sister, it changed things between them. Queens never really leaves you. Smyth is no-nonsense, unguarded, allergic to the overwrought.
She and McEnroe have roots on the East End, with nearly two decades in Southampton before resettling further east. They split time between New York and Los Angeles, where Smyth spends every spare moment with her first grandchild, a 6-month-old girl. Her husband of 29 years will join her onstage for a few numbers. He’s put in the work, she says: “At first I was like, no, I don’t think so. And now, he’s really been working hard. He loves it so much, and I enjoy watching him enjoy it.” McEnroe has figured out what the stage gives him that the court never could. In tennis, every point is yours alone to carry. “That’s what’s great about playing in a band,” he says. “You do it together. Not everything depends on every move you make.”
Smith, who has spent decades sharing stages with his wife, singer-songwriter and Portraits producer Taylor Barton, knows something about that chemistry. “There can be, at certain lucky gigs, a sort of magic when people play together,” he says. “When it happens, it is special.”
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