Sonic Editions

With one of the most powerful and unique voices of our time, there's never been a woman quite like Marianne. An extremely self destructive period in the '70s prompted Marianne's style and voice to evolve, chrysalis-like, from the gentle folk pop of her debut, to the melancholy-tinged, time-worn art of her later decades.

Born to Austro-Hungarian nobility, and raised partly on a commune in Oxfordshire, the world got its first glimpse of Marianne Faithfull in 1964 with her first single, As Tears Go By - released when she was only 17 years old. Co-produced with her Rolling Stones connections, Marianne would go on (for better or for worse), to become tabloid fodder, dating Mick Jagger and entering into a world of passion and hedonism that very nearly killed her. 1979 brought with it her spectacular comeback in the form of 'Broken English'. Now writing her own music, we saw her debut the broody, husky style that was to become her signature. It was a new and vital approach, shaped by years of pain and profound self reflection. Long clean, Marianne now lives in Paris and, more than half a century after we first heard her sing, hasn't stepped away from the stage or microphone since.