Marianne Faithfull

Few stars of the '60s 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)…

Produced by long-term collaborator Hal Willner, Marianne Faithfull's 19th studio album, Horses and High Heels, sees the '60s icon revisit eight classic songs from her heyday on her second consecutive covers-heavy album, following 2009's Easy Come Easy Go…

A unique new album of poetry and music featuring Marianne Faithfull, set to the music of Warren Ellis, and featuring Nick Cave, Brian Eno and Vincent Ségal.

This best-of basically covers the years 1979 to 1994, though it reaches back to 1964 for Marianne Faithfull's first recording and first hit, "As Tears Go By," and includes "She," slated for the upcoming 1995 album A Secret Life. Five of the 11 songs are drawn from Faithfull's strongest album, 1979's Broken English, including the bitter title track and "Why'd Ya Do It." Otherwise, compiler Chris Blackwell makes little attempt to present a balance among Faithfull's recordings – there is nothing at all from Dangerous Acquaintances or A Child's Adventure, and only one track each from Strange Weather and Blazing Away. But there is a good newly recorded cover of Patti Smith's "Ghost Dance" co-produced by Keith Richards and featuring other members of the Rolling Stones, and Blackwell rescues Faithfull's rendition of the title theme for the movie Trouble in Mind from the soundtrack album. It adds up to an excellent compilation that highlights Faithfull's strengths as a singer.

The Very Best of Marianne Faithfull' is a particularly strong collection of Marianne's earliest recordings made for Decca between 1964 to 1968. This album contains every one of her singles which made the charts both in Britain and America during those fruitful four years.

In early 1971, Marianne Faithfull – whose personal life was not in the best shape and whose commercial prospects were idle as she had released just one single since early 1967 – recorded an album's worth of material with producer Mike Leander, who had worked with Faithfull in the 1960s. Leander hoped to place the album with Bell Records, but despite some initial positive feedback, Bell rejected the record after it was completed.

This special performance is the culmination of a yearlong tour by Marianne Faithfull and pianist/ arranger Paul Trueblood. The breathy, frail, and innocent voice of the '60s, wilted by too many years of hard living, now conveys deep layers of emotion, and the rasp of her voice goes straight to the soul. This concert revisits her album 20th Century Blues and her passion for Kurt Weill, especially the songs composer for his theater collaborations with Bertolt Brecht (among them 'Alabama Song,' 'Pirate Jenny,' 'The Ballad of the Soldier's Wife,' and 'Surabaya Johnny').

Fully established as a dramatic, innovative singer with astonishing appeal and energy thanks to her string of excellent '80s releases, Faithfull concluded her renaissance decade with Blazing Away, an excellent live album recorded in New York's St. Anne's Cathedral…

This compilation which boasts fine sound features 15 tracks Marianne Faithfull recorded for the BBC in 1965 and 1966 (including two versions of one of the songs, "Go Away from My World"); also included are five brief between-song interviews that give listeners a chance to hear her poshly accented, articulate speech. This was the era, of course, in which Faithfull was still a fairly high-voiced pop-folk singer, and not the far earthier one she'd become when she emerged with a much deeper and more gravelly voice upon her late-'70s comeback.