Marianne Faithful

Marianne Faithfull's long and distinguished career has seen her emerge as one of the most original female singersongwriters England has produced.

She was born in Hampstead and was known as the crown princess of swinging. Her debut single As Tears Go By was the first song ever written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, of the famous The Rolling Stones. After this, she released five albums while embarking on a parallel career as an actress, both on film in GIRL ON A MOTORCYCLE (1968) and on stage in Chekhov's THREE SISTERS (1967) and HAMLET (1969), but by the end of the Sixties personal problems halted Marianne's career and her drug addiction took over.

In the mid-Seventies, Faithfull emerged with four more albums, but despite her new creative vigour, Marianne was not entirely drug free. Displaying a sadness tempered by optimism, and a despair rescued by humour Marianne returned, finally clean with a collection of classic pop, blues and art songs and a live retrospective which ably displayed why Faithfull has become one of the most sought after concert artists of the last 30 years.

New directions were taken on A SECRET LIFE (1995) co-written with the Italian composer Angelo Badalementi, and in her exploration of the music of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht. In 1991 she performed in the Threepenny Opera, at the Gate Theatre in Dublin and continued to released a blues album and recorded an opera THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS (1998). She returned to her mainstream musical career with the release of one of her most admired albums, VAGABOND WAYS in 1999.

In 2001, Marianne returned to her acting career and starred in a string of films, INTIMACY (2001), MARIE ANTOINETTE (2006), IRINA PALM (2006) for which she was nominated at the EFA for best actress. Two acclaimed albums followed based around collaborations with other artists that put her firmly back in the rock idiom KISSIN TIME (2002) and BEFORE THE POISON (2004). She also returned to the stage in THE BLACK RIDER (2004), a Faustian musical written by old friends Tom Waits and the late William Burroughs. Health scares put Marianne out of action for much of 2005 and 2006 but in 2007 Marianne toured the world and released a second volume of memoirs detailing a more personal side of her life called MEMORIES DREAMS AND REFLECTIONS (2007).
A recent trip to the BBC archives showed that almost all Marianne's live broadcasts from the sixties had survived. In a return to the label that made her name, Decca classics has released the 20 track collection MARIANNE FAITHFULL LIVE AT THE BBC in 2008, which includes all her early hits and many less well known recordings.

Marianne's EASY COME, EASY GO was released in 2008 which she feels is one of her best to date. Her latest album HORSES AND HIGH HEELS was released in 2010. She has survived a cancer scare in 2005 and clinical depression in 2008.