MARIANNE EVELYN GABRIEL FAITHFULL, 'AS TEARS GO BY'

Today, The Grandma is relaxing at home. She has decided to listen to some music and she has chosen Marianne Faithfull, one of her favourite singers who was born on a day like today in 1946.

Marianne Evelyn Gabriel Faithfull (born 29 December 1946) is an English singer, songwriter, and actress.

She achieved popularity in the 1960s with the release of her hit single As Tears Go By and became one of the lead female artists during the British Invasion in the United States.

Born in Hampstead, London, Marianne Faithfull began her career in 1964 after attending a Rolling Stones party, where she was discovered by Andrew Loog Oldham. After the release of her hit single As Tears Go By, she became an international star. Her debut album Marianne Faithfull (1965), released simultaneously with her album Come My Way, was a commercial success followed by a number of albums on Decca Records.

From 1966 to 1970, she had a highly publicised romantic relationship with Mick Jagger. Her popularity was further enhanced by her film roles, such as I'll Never Forget What's'isname (1967), The Girl on a Motorcycle (1968), and Hamlet (1969). However, her popularity was overshadowed by personal problems in the 1970s. During that time she was anorexic, homeless, and a heroin addict.

Noted for her distinctive voice, Marianne Faithfull's previously melodic and higher registered vocals, which were prevalent throughout her career in the 1960s, were affected by severe laryngitis, coupled with persistent drug abuse during the 1970s, permanently altering her voice, leaving it raspy, cracked and lower in pitch. This new sound was praised as whisky soaked by some critics for helping capture the raw emotions expressed in her music.

More information: Marianne Faithfull

After a long commercial absence, Marianne Faithfull made a comeback with the 1979 release of her critically acclaimed album Broken English. The album was a commercial success and marked a resurgence of her musical career. Broken English earned Faithfull a nomination for Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance and is often regarded as her definitive recording.

She followed with a series of albums, including Dangerous Acquaintances (1981), A Child's Adventure (1983), and Strange Weather (1987). Faithfull also wrote three books about her life: Faithfull: An Autobiography (1994), Memories, Dreams & Reflections (2007), and Marianne Faithfull: A Life on Record (2014).

Marianne Faithfull is listed on VH1's 100 Greatest Women of Rock and Roll list. She received the World Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2009 Women's World Awards and was made a Commandeur of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the government of France.

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. Robert Glynn Faithfull's family lived in Ormskirk, Lancashire, while he completed a doctorate at Liverpool 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.

Faithfull began her singing career in 1964, landing her first gigs as a folk music performer in coffeehouses. 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, 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. She then released a series of successful singles, including This Little Bird, Summer Nights, and Come and Stay With Me.

Faithfull married John Dunbar on 6 May 1965 in Cambridge with Peter Asher as the best man. The couple lived in a flat at 29 Lennox Gardens in Belgravia just off Knightsbridge, London SW1. On 10 November 1965, she gave birth to their son, Nicholas. She left her husband shortly after to live with Mick Jagger.

Faithfull lived on London's Soho streets for two years, suffering from heroin addiction and anorexia nervosa. Friends intervened and enrolled her in an NHS drug programme, from which she could get her daily fix on prescription from a chemist. She failed at controlling or stabilising her addiction at that time.

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.

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.

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In 1975 she released the country-influenced record Dreamin' My Dreams (a.k.a. Faithless), which reached No.1 on the Irish Albums Chart.

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. 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.

Faithfull began living in New York after the release of the follow-up to Broken English, Dangerous Acquaintances, in 1981.

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.

More information: Time Out

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.

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.

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.

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.

More information: The Guardian

 Rebellion is the only thing that keeps you alive!

Marianne Faithfull