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The Witches Song |
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Few stars of the '60s have reinvented themselves as successfully
as Marianne Faithfull. Coaxed into a singing career by Rolling Stones
manager Andrew Loog Oldham in 1964, she had a big hit in both Britain
and the U.S. with her debut single, the Jagger/Richards composition
"As Tears Go By" (which prefaced the Stones' own version by a full year).
Considerably more successful in her native land than the States, she had a
series of hits in the mid-'60s that set her high, fragile voice against delicate
orchestral pop arrangements: "Summer Night," "This Little Bird," and Jackie
De Shannon's "Come and Stay With Me." Not a songwriter at the outset of her
career, she owes more of her fame as a '60s icon to her extraordinary beauty
and her long-running romance with Mick Jagger, although she offered a taste of
things to come with her compelling 1969 single "Sister Morphine," which she
co-wrote (and which the Stones released themselves on Sticky Fingers later).
In the '70s, Faithfull split up with Jagger, developed a serious drug habit, and
recorded rarely, with generally dismal results. This occurred until late 1979, when
she pulled off an astonishing comeback with Broken English.
Displaying a croaking, cutting voice that had lowered a good octave since the
mid-'60s, Faithfull had also begun to write much of her own material, and
addressed sex and despair with wrenching realism. After allowing herself to
be framed as a demure chanteuse by songwriters and arrangers throughout
most of her career, Faithfull had found her own voice, and suddenly sounded
more relevant and contemporary than most of the stars she had rubbed shoulders
with in the '60s. Faithfull's recordings in the '80s and '90s were sporadic and erratic,
but generally quite interesting; Strange Weather, a Hal Willner-produced 1987
collection of standards and contemporary compositions that spanned several
decades for its sources, was her greatest triumph of the decade.
In 1994, she published her self-titled autobiography; the biography As Tears Go
By by Mark Hodkinson is an objective and thorough account of her life and times.
Ms. Faithfull returned to recording in 2002 with Kissin' Time an eclectic sollection
of songwriting collaborations with Beck, Damon Albarn, Billy Corgan, Jon Brion,
and Jarvis Cocker among others.
In 2004 Before The Posion was released in the U.K. making its entrance into the
U.S. market in early 2005. This album continued in the vein of its predecessor with
songwriting and production contribitions from P.J. Harvey, Nick Cave, and the Bad
Seeds, Brion and Albarn, but with far more consistent results.
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