Marianne Faithfull Box Collects Singer’s 1960s Recordings: Review
by Jeff Burger
Like the Bee Gees, Fleetwood Mac and a handful of other artists, the late Marianne Faithfull was lucky enough to have had more than one musical incarnation. The first began in 1964, when she scored a worldwide folk/pop hit with the lilting “As Tears Go By,” which was composed by her then-future boyfriend, Mick Jagger, and his songwriting partner, Keith Richards. She followed that up with several other memorable Top 40 tunes. But she also released “Sister Morphine,” a song she co-wrote with Jagger and Richards that suggests why her career went off the rails in the late ’60s. When she returned in 1979, she debuted a raspy and radically different voice on an album called Broken English that led to a new period of fame.
It’s that second era in the spotlight that garners most of the critical praise, but Faithfull’s 1960s material also deserves plaudits. And it’s the subject of a recently released six-CD, 81-track anthology called Cast Your Fate to the Wind: The Complete UK Decca Recordings. The clamshell-boxed set presents remastered versions of Faithfull’s four albums for the label, plus 27 remastered singles, B-sides and rarities. All these performances benefit from Faithfull’s delicate vibrato and complementary orchestrations. Other pluses include the excellence of the material and the extent to which she proves capable of handling everything from traditional and modern folk to Brill Building tunes and rock.
The package includes five “art cards” and a well-illustrated 76-page book with notes by Grammy-nominated producer Andrew Batt, who handled the remastering. His extensive essay, which incorporates many quotes from Faithfull, debunks the popular notion that she made few of the artistic decisions during this phase of her career.
Discs one and two in the anthology feature her first couple of albums, which were issued simultaneously in April 1965, less than four months after the singer’s 18th birthday. The folk-oriented Come My Way makes room for a few contemporary songs, such as Ian Tyson’s great “Four Strong Winds,” but consists mostly of traditional tunes, among them “House of the Rising Sun,” “Fare Thee Well” and “Once I Had a Sweetheart.” Frequent Faithfull accompanist Jon Mark, who produced the set, arranged most of these numbers. (Yup, the same Jon Mark who played with John Mayall and enjoyed success in the Mark-Almond Band.)
The eponymous other album from April 1965 is more pop-flavored. It incorporates “As Tears Go By,” as well as Jackie DeShannon’s “Come and Stay with Me,” which produced a hit single for Faithfull, and covers of the Beatles’ “I’m a Loser” and “Downtown,” the Petula Clark hit.
North Country Maid, her 1966 third CD, features such numbers as the traditional “Scarborough Fair,” Tom Paxton’s “The Last Thing on My Mind” and Donovan’s “Sunny Goodge Street.” Disc four is devoted to 1967’s Loveinamist, whose standouts include “Young Girl Blues” and two other Donovan songs, Tim Hardin’s “Reason to Believe” and John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s “Yesterday.”
The remaining two discs, which collect the singles, B-sides and rarities, contain numerous highlights, including the 1965 hit “Summer Nights” (the original 45 as well as a re-recorded version) and “Go Away from My World,” another single from the same year, which Mark composed. Two readings of “Sister Morphine” and an alternative take of “Sunny Goodge Street” are here as well.
Related: Our Album Rewind of Broken English
Note that “UK” follows the word “Complete” in the box’s title. In the 1960s, British acts’ U.K. and U.S. discographies differed, and Faithfull’s catalog was no exception. Three of the four studio LPs in this compendium appeared only in England and, though their contents largely mirror the American releases, completists might complain that one or two songs from Faithfull’s U.S. albums of the period are missing here. But all the hits are featured and a lot more, and one suspects most listeners will find that this box contains everything they need of her early work. Add A Perfect Stranger: The Island Anthology, which collects highlights from the 1980s and ’90s, and you’ll have an excellent picture of Faithfull’s entire career.
The August 1, 2025 collection is available in the U.S. here, in Canada here and in the U.K. here.
Burger wrote one of the first interview-based profiles of Bruce Springsteen to be published in a national magazine. He has interviewed many other music-world luminaries as well, including Steve Van Zandt, Roger McGuinn, John Sebastian, Wolfman Jack, Tom Waits, Foreigner’s Mick Jones, Billy Joel, Steve Forbert, Tommy James, the Righteous Brothers, Gordon Lightfoot, Deep Purple’s Tommy Bolin, and members of Steely Dan and the Marshall Tucker Band. He has also interviewed many other public figures, such as Suze Orman, Daymond John, James Carville, Donald Trump, Sir Richard Branson, F. Lee Bailey, and Cliff Robertson.
His books include Dylan on Dylan: Interviews and Encounters, Lennon on Lennon: Conversations with John Lennon, Leonard Cohen on Leonard Cohen: Interviews and Encounters, and Springsteen on Springsteen: Interviews, Speeches, and Encounters, all of which are published in the U.S. and Canada by Chicago Review Press. The books have been republished in numerous other countries.
Burger has been the editor of several periodicals, including Business Jet Traveler, from which he retired in 2024. During his 20 years at that
publication, it received more than 120 major editorial awards, including multiple wins for the world’s Best Consumer Travel Magazine in the annual Folio:Eddie competition.
Burger lives in Ridgewood, New Jersey. His wife, Madeleine Beresford, is a puppeteer and former preschool director and teacher. The couple have two grown children.
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