Marianne Faithfull

Having helped shepherd the early-'60s British invasion of America's pop charts, singer, songwriter, and actor Marianne Faithfull eventually bloomed into an artist for the ages. Faithfull was born in London in 1946, the daughter of a British spy and an Austrian baroness. The first act of her unlikely yet spectacular career began in 1964, when a 17-year-old Faithfull was spotted by Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham, who produced her Jagger/Richards-composed hit “As Tears Go By.” After a string of folkcentric albums, ending with 1967’s Love in a Mist, Faithfull spent the next decade struggling with addiction and other health problems before returning with the 1976 country album Dreamin’ My Dreams. Three years later, the second act of her career began in earnest with the release of the emotionally raw and critically acclaimed Broken English, which showcased Faithfull’s ravaged voice to brilliant new-wave advantage. She found an especially sympathetic producer in Hal Willner, who facilitated her reinvention as a jazz and blues singer on 1987’s Strange Weather and four other albums spotlighting her interpretive brilliance. In 2021, after recovering from a near-fatal bout of COVID-19, Faithfull released her 21st album, She Walks in Beauty, containing recitations of her favorite Romantic poetry over the music of Warren Ellis, Brian Eno, and others.