Marianne Faithfull | Artist
Marianne Faithfull is an English singer, songwriter and actress born 1946 in Hampstead, London. She started her career in the early '60s as a folk-pop singer and had a hit single "As Tears Go By". Her careered stalled for a decade due to substance abuse but she re-emerged in 1979 with the superb Broken English album. Faithfull began her singing career in 1964, landing gigs as a folk performer in coffee houses and she soon became active in London's swinging social scene. In early 1964 she attended a Rolling Stones launch party with artist John Dunbar and met Andrew Loog Oldham, who discovered her. Her first major release, "As Tears Go By" was written and composed by Jagger/Richards and became a chart success. She then released a series of successful singles, including "This Little Bird", "Summer Nights", and "Come Stay With Me." Faithfull married John Dunbar in May 1965 with musician Peter Asher as her best man. She left her husband shortly after the birth of her son Nicholas in November 1965 to live with Mick Jagger. During her time with Jagger she was introduced to Anita Pallenberg and began a long relationship with drug abuse, and publicly humiliated by the scandalous police raid on at Keith Richards' house in West Wittering, Sussex, where Faithfull was found and photographed wearing only a fur coat. Faithfull ended her relationship with Jagger in May 1970, and she lost custody of her son that same year, which led to her attempting suicide in Sydney. Faithfull's personal life went into decline, and her career went into a tailspin. She made only a few appearances and lived on London's Soho streets for two years, suffering from heroin addiction and anorexia nervosa. Her career then bounced back in 1979 with the album Broken English, one of her most critically hailed albums. Partially influenced by the punk explosion and her second husband, punk rocker Ben Brierly. After more personal ups-and-downs, 1987 saw Faithfull again reinvent herself, this time as a jazz and blues singer, on the superb Strange Weather album produced by Hal Willner. The album became her most critically lauded work of the decade. Coming full circle, the renewed Faithfull re-recorded "As Tears Go By" for Strange Weather, this time in a tighter, more gravelly voice. To-date Marianne Faithfull has released 23 studio albums, outstanding releases include Marianne Faithfull (1965), Broken English (1979), Strange Weather (1987), A Secret Life (1995), Vagabond Ways (1999), Before The Poison (2004), and Negative Capability (2018). The live albums Blazing Away (1990), and 20th Century Blues (1997) are also recommended. In addition to her music career, Faithfull has had a career as an actress in theatre, television and film. She appeared as God in two guest appearances in the British sitcom Absolutely Fabulous. She also played the Devil in William Burroughs' and Tom Waits' musical The Black Rider, directed by Robert Wilson. She received a Best Actress nomination from the European Film Academy for her central role in the film Irina Palm. As a point of interest, Faithfull's mother, Eva, was the daughter of an Austro-Hungarian nobleman, Artur Wolfgang, Ritter von Sacher-Masoch (1875–1953) and her great-great-uncle Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, wrote the erotic novel 'Venus in Furs' which spawned the term 'Masochism'.
Artist Website: mariannefaithfull.org.uk
Featured Albums: Marianne Faithfull
Related Artists: Angelo Badalamenti, Barry Reynolds, Hal Willner, Nick Cave, Rolling Stones, Warren Ellis
Collections: Women of Note
