For an artist as personal as Patti Smith, who once told an interviewer that it wasn't difficult to leave "the limelight and the applause" at the height of her popularity as a rock singer to become a full-time wife and mother, she certainly seems to derive a great deal of spiritual sustenance from direct contact with people.

"No, I'm not playing the Fuji Rock Festival this year," she says over the phone from her home in New York, sounding disappointed. "I did it the last two years. I don't know if they were going to invite us, anyway. After you do it two years in a row, maybe they don't. It's the best festival in the world. There's a lot of excitement and craziness, but the people are just so cool. At most festivals you're stuck in a tent somewhere. At Fuji I can walk around and talk to all the people. That really makes me happy."

As a consolation, Smith will be coming to Japan with her band this summer to play a series of concerts in Tokyo and some cities she's never visited before. "We'll be in Japan for 10 days, and I think I can meet a lot of people in that time. It's important to me."