Marianne Faithfull

Faithfull was born in Hampstead, London. Her half-brother is artist Simon Faithfull. Her father, Major Robert Glynn Faithfull, was a British intelligence officer and professor of Italian Literature at Bedford College of London University.

Faithfull's mother, Eva, was the daughter of an Austro-Hungarian nobleman, Artur Wolfgang, Ritter von Sacher-Masoch (1875–1953). Eva chose to style herself as Eva von Sacher-Masoch, Baroness Erisso.[2] Eva had been a ballerina for the Max Reinhardt Company during her early years, and danced in productions of works by the German theatrical duo Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill.[3]

Faithfull's mother had been born in Budapest and moved to Vienna in 1918. The family of Sacher-Masoch had secretly opposed the Nazi regime in Vienna. Faithfull's father's intelligence work for the British Army brought him into contact with the family, and he thus met Eva, his future wife.[4] Faithfull's maternal grandfather had aristocratic roots in the Habsburg Dynasty, while Faithfull's maternal grandmother was Jewish.[5]

Faithfull's maternal great-great-uncle was Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, whose erotic novel, Venus in Furs, spawned the word "masochism."[6] In regard to her roots in the Austrian nobility, Faithfull discovered on the British television series Who Do You Think You Are? that the title used by family members was Ritter von Sacher-Masoch, the corresponding English title being that of Baroness, an inherited knighthood.[7]

Her family lived in Ormskirk, Lancashire, while her father completed a doctorate at Liverpool University.[8] She spent some of her early life at the commune at Braziers Park, Oxfordshire, formed by John Norman Glaister, where her father, who was also instrumental in its foundation, lived and participated. Her parents divorced when she was six years old,[8] after which she moved with her mother to Milman Road in Reading. Her primary school was in Brixton. Living in reduced circumstances, Faithfull's girlhood was marred by bouts of tuberculosis. She was a charitably subsidised (bursaried) pupil at St Joseph's Roman Catholic Convent School, Reading, where she was, for a time, a weekly boarder.[9] While at St Joseph's, she was a member of the Progress Theatre's student group.[10]

Faithfull performing on the Dutch TV programme Fanclub on 17 September 1966

Faithfull began her singing career in 1964, landing her first gigs as a folk music performer in coffeehouses.[1] She soon began taking part in London's exploding 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",[11] was written and composed by Jagger, Keith Richards, and Oldham, and became a chart success. (The Rolling Stones recorded their own version one year later, which also became successful.)[12] She then released a series of successful singles, including "This Little Bird", "Summer Nights", and "Come and Stay With Me".[1] Faithfull married John Dunbar on 6 May 1965 in Cambridge with Peter Asher as the best man.[8] The couple lived in a flat at 29 Lennox Gardens in Belgravia just off Knightsbridge, London SW1.[8] On 10 November 1965, she gave birth to their son, Nicholas.[8] She left her husband shortly after to live with Mick Jagger.[8]

Michael Cooper, Mick Jagger, Marianne Faithfull, Shepard Sherbell, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and Brian Jones at the Royal Concertgebouw on 1 September 1967

In 1966 she took Nicholas to stay with Brian Jones and Anita Pallenberg in London. During that time period, Faithfull started smoking marijuana and became best friends with Pallenberg. She also began a much-publicised relationship with Mick Jagger that same year. The couple became notorious and largely part of the hip Swinging London scene. She is heard on The Beatles' song "Yellow Submarine".[13] She was found wearing only a fur rug by police executing a drug search at Keith Richards's house in West Wittering, Sussex. In an interview 27 years later with A.M. Homes for Details, Faithfull discussed her wilder days and admitted that the drug bust fur rug incident had ravaged her personal life: "It destroyed me. To be a male drug addict and to act like that is always enhancing and glamorising. A woman in that situation becomes a slut and a bad mother." In 1968, Faithfull, by now addicted to cocaine, miscarried a daughter (whom she had named Corrina) while retreating to Jagger's country house in Ireland.[1][14]

Faithfull's involvement in Jagger's life would be reflected in some of the Rolling Stones's best known songs. "Sympathy for the Devil", featured on the 1968 album Beggars Banquet, was partially inspired by The Master and Margarita, written by Mikhail Bulgakov, a book which Faithfull introduced to Jagger. The song "You Can't Always Get What You Want," on the 1969 album Let It Bleed, was supposedly written and composed about Faithfull; the songs "Wild Horses" and "I Got the Blues" on the 1971 album Sticky Fingers were also allegedly influenced by Faithfull, and she co-wrote "Sister Morphine" (the writing credit for the song was the subject of a protracted legal battle that was ultimately resolved with Faithfull listed as co-author). In her autobiography, Faithfull said Jagger and Richards released it in their own names so that her agent did not collect all the royalties and proceeds from the song, especially as she was homeless and battling with heroin addiction at the time. In 1968, Faithfull appeared in The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus concert, giving a solo performance of "Something Better".[1]

Faithfull ended her relationship with Jagger in May 1970, after initiating an affair with Anglo-Irish nobleman "Paddy" Rossmore, and she lost custody of her son in that same year, which led to her attempting suicide.[1] Faithfull's personal life went into decline, and her career went into a tailspin. She made only a few appearances, including an October 1973 performance for NBC with David Bowie, singing Sonny & Cher's "I Got You Babe".[1]

Faithfull lived on London's Soho streets for two years, suffering from heroin addiction and anorexia nervosa.[15] Friends intervened and enrolled her in an NHS heroin-assisted treatment programme.[16] She failed at controlling or stabilising her addiction at that time.[17] In 1971, producer Mike Leander found her on the streets and made an attempt to revive her career, producing part of her album Rich Kid Blues. The album was shelved until 1985.[1]

Severe laryngitis, coupled with persistent drug abuse during this period, permanently altered Faithfull's voice, leaving it cracked and lower in pitch. While the new sound was praised as "whisky soaked" by some critics, journalist John Jones, of the Sunday Times, wrote that she had "permanently vulgarised her voice".[1] In 1975 she released the country-influenced record Dreamin' My Dreams (a.k.a. Faithless), which reached No.1 on the Irish Albums Chart.[1] Faithfull moved into a squat without hot water or electricity in Chelsea with then-boyfriend Ben Brierly, of the punk band the Vibrators. She later shared flats in Chelsea and Regent's Park with Henrietta Moraes.

In 1979, the same year she was arrested for marijuana possession in Norway, Faithfull's career returned full force with the album Broken English, one of her most critically hailed albums.[1] Partially influenced by the punk explosion and her marriage to Brierly in the same year, it ranged from the punk-pop sounds of the title track, which addressed terrorism in Europe (being dedicated to Ulrike Meinhof), to the punk-reggae rhythms of "Why D'Ya Do It?", a song with aggressive lyrics adapted from a poem by Heathcote Williams.[18] The musical structure of this song is complex: though on the surface hard rock, it is a tango in 4/4 time, with an opening electric guitar riff by Barry Reynolds in which beats 1 and 4 of each measure are accented on the up-beat, and beat 3 is accented on the down beat. Faithfull, in her autobiography, commented that her fluid yet rhythmic reading of Williams' lyric was "an early form of rap".[1] Broken English was also the album which revealed the full extent of Faithfull's drinking and drug use and its effect on her singing voice, with the melodic vocals on her early records being replaced by a raucous, deep voice which helped capture the raw emotions expressed in the album's songs.[1]

Faithfull began living in New York after the release of the follow-up to Broken English, Dangerous Acquaintances, in 1981. The same year, she appeared as a vocalist on the single "Misplaced Love" by Rupert Hine, which charted in Australia.[19] Despite her comeback, she was still battling with addiction in the mid-1980s, at one point breaking her jaw tripping on a flight of stairs while under the influence.[1] In another incident her heart stopped. A disastrous appearance on Saturday Night Live was blamed on too many rehearsals, but it was suspected that drugs had caused her vocal cords to seize up. Rich Kid Blues (1985) was another collection of her early work combined with new recordings, a double record showcasing both the pop and rock 'n' roll facets of her output to date. In 1985, Faithfull performed "Ballad of the Soldier's Wife" on Hal Willner's tribute album Lost in the Stars: The Music of Kurt Weill. Faithfull's restrained readings lent themselves to the material, and this collaboration informed several subsequent works.

In 1985, she was at the Hazelden Foundation Clinic in Minnesota for rehabilitation. She then received treatment at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts. While living at a hotel in nearby Cambridge, Faithfull started an affair (while still married to Brierly) with a dual diagnosis (mentally ill and drug dependent) man, Howard Tose, who later committed suicide by jumping from a 14th floor window of the flat they shared.[1] In 1987, Faithfull dedicated a "thank you" to Tose within the album package of Strange Weather, on the back sleeve: "To Howard Tose with love and thanks". Faithfull's divorce from Brierly was also finalised that year. In 1995, she wrote and sang about Tose's death in "Flaming September" from the album A Secret Life.[1]

In 1987, Faithfull again reinvented herself, this time as a jazz and blues singer, on Strange Weather, also produced by Willner. The album became her most critically lauded album of the decade. Coming full circle, the renewed Faithfull cut another recording of "As Tears Go By" for Strange Weather, this time in a tighter, more gravelly voice. The singer confessed to a lingering irritation with her first hit. "I always childishly thought that was where my problems started, with that damn song," she told Jay Cocks in Time magazine, but she came to terms with it as well as with her past. In a 1987 interview with Rory O'Connor of Vogue, Faithfull declared, "forty is the age to sing it, not seventeen."[14] The album of covers was produced by Hal Willner after the two had spent numerous weekends listening to hundreds of songs from the annals of 20th-century music. They chose to record such diverse tracks as Bob Dylan's "I'll Keep It with Mine" and "Yesterdays", written by Broadway composers Jerome Kern and Otto Harbach. The work also includes tunes first made notable by such blues luminaries as Billie Holiday and Bessie Smith; Tom Waits wrote the title track. In 1988, Faithfull married writer and actor Giorgio Della Terza, but they divorced in 1991.[1]

When Roger Waters assembled an all-star cast of musicians to perform the rock opera The Wall live in Berlin in July 1990, Faithfull played the part of Pink's overprotective mother. Her musical career rebounded for the third time during the early 1990s with the live album Blazing Away, which featured Faithfull revisiting songs she had performed over the course of her career. Blazing Away was recorded at St. Ann's Cathedral in Brooklyn. The 13 selections include "Sister Morphine", a cover of Edith Piaf's "Les Prisons du Roy", and "Why D'Ya Do It?" from Broken English. Alanna Nash of Stereo Review commended the musicians whom Faithfull had chosen to back her—longtime guitarist Reynolds was joined by former Band member Garth Hudson and pianist Dr. John. Nash was also impressed with the album's autobiographical tone, noting "Faithfull's gritty alto is a cracked and halting rasp, the voice of a woman who's been to hell and back on the excursion fare which, of course, she has." The reviewer extolled Faithfull as "one of the most challenging and artful of women artists," and Rolling Stone writer Fred Goodman asserted: "Blazing Away is a fine retrospective – proof that we can still expect great things from this greying, jaded contessa."[14]

A Collection of Her Best Recordings was released in 1994 by Island Records to coincide with the release of the Faithfull autobiography; the two products originally shared the same cover art. It contained Faithfull's updated version of "As Tears Go By" from Strange Weather, several cuts from Broken English and A Child's Adventure and a song written by Patti Smith scheduled for inclusion on an Irish AIDS benefit album. This track, "Ghost Dance", suggested to Faithfull by a friend who later died of AIDS, was made with a trio of old friends: Stones' drummer Charlie Watts and guitarist Ron Wood backed Faithfull's vocals on the song, while Keith Richards coproduced it. The retrospective album also featured one live track, "Times Square", from Blazing Away as well as a new Faithfull original, "She", penned with composer and arranger Angelo Badalamenti to be released the following year on A Secret Life, with additional songs co written with Badalamenti. Faithfull also sang "Love is Teasin," an Irish folk standard, with The Chieftains on their album The Long Black Veil, released in 1995. Faithfull sang a duet and recited text on the San Francisco band Oxbow's 1997 album Serenade in Red. Faithfull also sang interlude vocals on Metallica's song "The Memory Remains" from their 1997 album Reload and appeared in the song's music video; the track reached No. 28 in the U.S. (No.3 on the U.S. Mainstream Rock chart) and No.13 in the UK.

As her fascination with the music of Weimar-era Germany continued, Faithfull performed in The Threepenny Opera at the Gate Theatre, Dublin, playing Pirate Jenny. Her interpretation of the music led to a new album, Twentieth Century Blues (1996), which focused on the music of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht as well as Noël Coward, followed in 1998 by a recording of The Seven Deadly Sins, with the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Dennis Russell Davies. A hugely successful concert and cabaret tour accompanied by Paul Trueblood at the piano, culminated in the filming, at the Montreal Jazz Festival, of the DVD Marianne Faithfull Sings Kurt Weill.

In 1998, Faithfull released A Perfect Stranger: The Island Anthology, a two-disc compilation that chronicled her years with Island Records. It featured tracks from her albums Broken English, Dangerous Acquaintances, A Child's Adventure, Strange Weather, Blazing Away, and A Secret Life, as well as several B sides and unreleased tracks.

Faithfull's 1999 DVD Dreaming My Dreams contained material about her childhood and parents, with historical video footage going back to 1964 and interviews with the artist and several friends who have known her since childhood. The documentary included sections on her relationship with John Dunbar and Mick Jagger, and brief interviews with Keith Richards. It concluded with footage from a 30-minute live concert, originally broadcast on PBS for the series Sessions at West 54th. That same year, she ranked 25th in VH1's 100 Greatest Women in Rock and Roll.

Roger Waters (Pink Floyd) wrote the song "Incarceration of a Flower Child" portraying Syd Barrett in 1968; it was never recorded by Pink Floyd. The song was eventually recorded by Faithfull on her 1999 album Vagabond Ways.

Faithfull performing in 2008

Faithfull released several albums in the 2000s that received positive critical response, beginning with Vagabond Ways (1999), which was produced and recorded by Mark Howard. It included collaborations with Daniel Lanois, Emmylou Harris, Pink Floyd's Roger Waters, and writer (and friend) Frank McGuinness. Later that year she sang "Love Got Lost" on Joe Jackson's Night and Day II.

Her renaissance continued with Kissin Time, released in 2002. The album contained songs written with Blur, Beck, Billy Corgan, Jarvis Cocker, Dave Stewart, David Courts and the French pop singer Étienne Daho. On this record, she paid tribute to Nico (with "Song for Nico"), whose work she admired. The album also included an autobiographical song she co-wrote with Cocker, called "Sliding Through Life on Charm".

In 2005, she released Before the Poison. The album was primarily a collaboration with PJ Harvey and Nick Cave, though Damon Albarn and Jon Brion also contributed. Before the Poison received mixed reviews from both Rolling Stone and Village Voice.[20][21] In 2005 she recorded (and co-produced) "Lola R Forever", a cover of the Serge Gainsbourg song "Lola Rastaquouere" with Sly & Robbie for the tribute album Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited. In 2007, Faithfull collaborated with the British singer-songwriter, Patrick Wolf on the duet "Magpie" from his third album The Magic Position and wrote and recorded a new song for the French film Truands called "A Lean and Hungry Look" with Ulysse.

In March 2007 she returned to the stage with a touring show entitled Songs of Innocence and Experience. Supported by a trio, the performance had a semi-acoustic feel and toured European theatres throughout the spring and summer. The show featured many songs she had not performed live before including "Something Better", the song she sang on The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus. The show also included the Harry Nilsson song "Don't Forget Me", "Marathon Kiss" from Vagabond Ways and a version of the traditional "Spike Driver Blues".

Articles published at that time hinted Faithfull was looking to retirement and was hoping that money from Songs of the Innocence and Experience would enable her to live in comfort. She said: "I'm not prepared to be 70 and absolutely broke. I realised last year that I have no safety net at all and I'm going to have to get one. So I need to change my attitude to life, which means I have to put away 10 per cent every year of my old age. I want to be in a position where I don't have to work. I should have thought about this a long time ago but I didn't."[22] However, she still lived in her flat in Paris[23] (located in one of the most expensive streets of the capital) and had a house in County Waterford, Ireland.[23] Recording of Easy Come, Easy Go commenced in New York City on 6 December 2007; the album was produced by Hal Willner who had previously recorded Strange Weather in 1997. A version of Morrissey's "Dear God Please Help Me" from his 2006 album, Ringleader of the Tormentors is one of the songs featured. In March 2009, she performed "The Crane Wife 3" on The Late Show.[24] In late March, she began the Easy Come, Easy Go tour, which took her to France, Germany, Austria, New York City, Los Angeles and London.[25]

On 16 April 2009, while preparing to board a British Airways flight at London's Gatwick Airport bound for a concert appearance in Bologna, François Ravard, accompanying Faithfull, was detained and then later arrested. In a statement, British Airways said: "A male customer became aggressive and abusive at check-in when he was refused travel on a flight from Gatwick to Bologna. He appeared to be intoxicated on arrival at check-in. In such circumstances, an assessment is made as to whether the passenger is fit to travel. When he was refused travel, he became physically and verbally abusive. Police were called and he was arrested. Such behaviour will not be tolerated."[26] Faithfull, however, had not been drinking and was allowed to board. The pair was flying to Italy on a leg of her world tour promoting Easy Come, Easy Go. According to her spokesperson, "Marianne was at Gatwick airport but was not involved in any way in the situation that occurred and she managed to travel on to Bologna as planned. Her gig tonight there will go ahead as planned, and Francois travelled from Britain to join her yesterday. Marianne hadn't been drinking at the time of the incident and she does not drink alcohol. She is enjoying life and loving it as she is sober and clean."[26]

On 3 May 2009, she was featured on CBS News Sunday Morning and interviewed by Anthony Mason in the "Sunday Profile" segment. Both in-studio and on-the-street (New York City) interview segments with Faithfull and Mason were interspersed with extensive biographical and musical footage.[27]

In November, Faithfull was interviewed by Jennifer Davies[28] on World Radio Switzerland, where she described the challenges of being stereotyped as a "mother, or the pure wife". Because of this, she insisted, it has been hard to maintain a long career as a female artist, which, she said, gave her empathy for Amy Winehouse when they met recently.[29]

In 2010, she was honoured with the Icon of the Year award from Q magazine.

On 31 January 2011, Faithfull released her 18th studio album Horses and High Heels in mainland Europe with mixed reviews.[30] [31] [32] The 13 track album contains four songs co-written by Faithfull; the rest are covers of mainly well known songs such as Dusty Springfield's "Goin' Back" and the Shangri-Las' "Past, Present, Future". A UK CD release was planned for 7 March 2011. Faithfull supported the album's release with an extensive European tour with a five-piece band, arriving in the UK on 24 May for a rare show at London's Barbican Centre, with an extra UK show at Leamington Spa on 26 May.

On 7 May 2011, she appeared on BBC Radio 2's Graham Norton Show.[33] She reunited with Metallica in December 2011 for their 30th anniversary celebration at the Fillmore where she performed "The Memory Remains".[34]

In 2012, Faithfull recorded a cover version of a Stevie Nicks track from the Fleetwood Mac album Tusk as part of a Fleetwood Mac tribute project. The track "Angel" was released on 14 August 2012 as part of the tribute album Just Tell Me That You Want Me.[35]

On 22 June 2013, she made a sell-out concert appearance at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, with jazz musician Bill Frisell playing guitar, as a part of Meltdown Festival curated by Yoko Ono.[36]

In September 2014, Faithfull released an album of all-new material, titled Give My Love to London. She started a 12-month 50th anniversary tour at the end of 2014.

During a webchat hosted by The Guardian on 1 February 2016, Faithfull revealed plans to release a live album from her 50th anniversary tour. She also had ideas for a follow-up for Give My Love to London, but had no intention of recording new material for at least a year and a half.[37]

Faithfull's most recent album, Negative Capability, was released in November 2018. It featured Rob Ellis, Warren Ellis, Nick Cave, Ed Harcourt, and Mark Lanegan.[38][39]

A spoken word album titled She Walks in Beauty was released in May 2021.[40] She is accompanied with musical arrangements by Warren Ellis, Brian Eno, Nick Cave and Vincent Segal. The album sees her recite the 19th-century British Romantic poets.[41]