Marianne Faithfull
Marianne Faithfull was born in Hampstead, London, England on December 29, 1946. Her father was a British Intelligence officer who also taught Italian literature at London University, and her mother was a distant relative of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, the notorious author whose work helped define the concepts of sadism and masochism. In her teens, Faithfull took up singing, appearing at folk clubs, and was introduced to the rarefied atmosphere of the music community in London. Faithfull was coaxed into a singing career by Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham in 1964 after he spotted her at a party, and she had a big hit in both Britain and the U.S. with her debut single, the Jagger/Richards composition "As Tears Go By" (which prefaced the Stones' own version by a full year). Considerably more successful in her native land than the States, she had a series of hits in the mid-'60s that set her high, fragile voice against delicate orchestral pop arrangements: "Summer Night," "This Little Bird," and Jackie DeShannon's "Come and Stay with Me." Not a songwriter at the outset of her career, she owed much of her status as a '60s icon to her long-running romance with Mick Jagger, although she offered a taste of things to come with her compelling 1969 single "Sister Morphine," which she co-wrote (and which the Stones later released themselves on Sticky Fingers).