Faithfull, Marianne

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Faithfull, Marianne

Faithfull, Marianne, one of the toughest and most durable women in popular music; b. London, England, Dec. 29, 1946. Marianne Faithfull’s parents might have been one of the classic mismatches of the century. Her mother, Baroness Ava Sacher-Masoch—unlike her great uncle Leopold who set the standards for Victorian era literary debauchery—disliked sex. Her father Glynn Faithfull was a sexologist, inventor of the Frigidity Machine designed to “unblock primal libidinal energy.” It apparently didn’t work on his wife and he ran off with an exotic dancer. His daughter Marianne wound up in convent school despite his arguments that it would give her problems with sex. He was right, and interesting problems they were.

While still attending convent school in 1964, she met Andrew Loog Oldham, producer and manager of the Rolling Stones. Without even hearing her voice, he signed her to a recording agreement. “He thought he could sell me,” she told England’s Record Mirror in 1964, “not my voice.”

As it turned out, her voice was nearly as angelic as her looks. Oldham set her up with as yet unrecorded Jagger/Richards composition, “As Tears Go By,” loading his production with a full complement of weeping strings. It became a substantial hit on both sides of the Atlantic, hitting #22 in the U.S. Over the next year, she landed three more hits, taking Jackie DeShannon’s “Come and Stay with Me” to #26, “This Little Bird” to #32, and “Summer Nights” to #24. Her albums featured music by Donovan and Tim Hardin, but anything she attempted artistically in the 1960s—and she performed on stage and film as well as recording—was overshadowed by her other passions.

Her liaisons became far more notorious. Faithfull got plugged into the whole Rolling Stones orbit, sleeping by her own admission with Richards and Brian Jones before settling into a four-year affair with Mick Jagger. She inspired such Stones classics as “Let’s Spend the Night Together,” “Wild Horses,” and “You Can’t Al-ways Get What You Want,” and even wrote the lyrics to “Sister Morphine.” Indeed, she says she left Jagger after four years for her greater love of drugs. She was the subject of the infamous 1967 drug bust that put both her and Jagger in the pokey, with the London papers reporting “Scantily Clad Woman at Drug Party.”

The 1970s were mostly a lost decade for Faithfull. After a post-Jagger suicide attempt, she dropped out of the public eye and her life was mostly informed by her drug abuse. She recorded a country album with Joe Cocker’s Grease Band in 1976, but it was her stunning 1979 rock record Broken English that thrust her back into the public eye, and caused a reappraisal of her artistry. Her virginal voice and good looks had been ravaged by all the years of abuse, but the undeniable power of the music turned the album into a cult hit, partly fueled by an appearance on Saturday Night Live. Her songs like the title track, “Why’d You Do It?,” and “Time Square” were edgier than anything the Stones had recorded in years, edgier even than much of the punk and new wave music with which she competed. While her next albums, Dangerous Acquaintances and A Child’s Adventure were good, they lacked the raw power and surprise of Broken English.

In 1985, Faithfull checked into the Hazelden clinic to go through detox, cleaning up her act physically. Her music continued to grow. Strange Weather, a powerful collection of dark standards and originals, recorded in the wake of a boyfriend’s suicide was described as “music to slit your wrists by.” The live album, Blazing Away, attempted to recapture her past in the context of her present. She recorded A Secret Life, a moody atmospheric album, with Twin Peaks composer Angelo Badalamente. In the mid- and late 1990s, she turned toward cabaret songs and covers. Her live album 20th Century Blues, included a cover of “Falling in Love Again.” She continued to emphasize her German sensibilities when she tackled Kurt Weill’s Seven Deadly Sins in 1998.

Discography

Marianne Faithfull (1965); Go Away from My World (1965); Come My Way (1965); Faithful Forever (1966); North Country Maid (1966); Love in a Mist (1967); The World of Marianne Faithfull (1969); Dreaming My Dreams (1977); Faithless Sony (1978); Broken English (1979); Dangerous Acquaintances (1981); As Tears Go By (1981); A Child’s Adventure (1983); Summer Nights (1984); Music for the Millions (1985); Sfnmge Weatfzer (1987); Rich Kid Blues (1988); Bkzmg Away (live; 1990); A Secret Life (1995); 20ffe Century B/wes (1997); The Seven Deadly Sins (1998); Vagabond Ways (1999).