I first saw Marianne Faithfull back in the late seventies, maybe the very early eighties, performing in a pub on Fulham Broadway, London. I was totally mesmerized by her presence and even though I can’t remember a single song she performed I can still see her on stage holding me and many others in the palm of her hand.
For me she represented a very real link back to earlier times of legendary sixties hedonism when rock stars were exactly that. Just up the road from that pub had been the epicenter of that scene. Cheyne Walk, Chelsea which housed both Keith and Mick, a stones throw away from Brian Jones. The beautiful Marianne was intrinsically linked to the band and everything that went with it.
Her's is a life lived. Her epitaph will be exactly that. It has at times been lived beyond the red line of danger. For most of it she has been next to the great and the not so good and shared those times to the full. She was part of the legend of the sixties, part of the reason we remain fascinated by it and the huge irrevocable changes it brought to society.
Oddly in a world of continuing double standards Marianne finds her past the subject of criticism for many of its excesses. Meanwhile for the Stones themselves the very same stories help to confirm their, rightful, legendary status in rock music’s darker side. There was a time however when you could hardly separate the two. She was very much a part and, in equal measure, a victim of those life changing times.
The release of Easy Come Easy Go, her first album since the excellent Before The Poison (2005), is notable for several intriguing reasons. This is most definitely the case with the guest appearance of fellow survivor Keith Richards who duets on Merle Haggard’s “Sing Me Back Home”.
How this came about is the subject of a touching moment revealed in the accompanying DVD. Keith has always loved this song and back in the sixties used to sing it with Gram Parsons. Sadly, unlike Keith and Marianne, he was one of far too many that didn’t make it.
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