Marianne Faithfull’s timeless artistry takes center stage once again with the release of her complete UK Decca catalog, now reissued across LP, CD, and streaming. The collection, completed before her passing in January, arrives as both a loving tribute and a definitive archive of her early career. Working closely with Grammy-nominated producer Andrew Batt, Faithfull personally contributed to the project, reflecting on her 1960s recordings with new perspective and pride.
All four original Decca albums — Marianne Faithfull, Come My Way, North Country Maid, and Loveinamist — have been meticulously remastered from the original tapes and are available on vinyl, including three appearing on LP for the first time since their initial release. Accompanying them is Cast Your Fate To The Wind, a 2LP set compiling singles, B-sides, rarities, and four previously unreleased tracks, along with a 6-CD box set titled Cast Your Fate To The Wind: The Complete UK Decca Recordings, featuring a 76-page book of rare photos and new essays by Batt.
Faithfull’s Decca years marked a period of duality — both pop star and folk singer — beginning with her debut single “As Tears Go By,” discovered by impresario Andrew Loog Oldham. Decca’s unprecedented decision to release her two debut albums on the same day in April 1965 showcased her dual creative identity: Marianne Faithfull, a polished pop album produced by Mike Leander, and Come My Way, a folk collection rooted in the songs she performed in London clubs.
Her 1966 album North Country Maid represented the peak of her folk period, interpreting songs by Ewan MacColl, Cyril Tawney, and traditional ballads like “She Moved Thru’ The Fair,” a track she would continue performing throughout her career. Loveinamist followed in 1967, blending folk-pop with a baroque sensibility on tracks like Tim Hardin’s “Reason To Believe” and Donovan’s “In The Night Time.”
Cast Your Fate To The Wind offers rare gems from the archives, including “A Strange World,” a previously unreleased single considered as a follow-up to “As Tears Go By,” and a haunting a cappella version of “She Moved Thru The Fair.” It also spotlights her early songwriting with “Oh Look Around You” and “I’d Like To Dial Your Number.”
For Faithfull, these reissues are not just an archival project but a reclaiming of her creative authorship. “I think I did express a lot in my early work,” she reflected before her passing. “What people hear with the jump between these recordings and Broken English is just experience; life happened, but for me it’s all been connected. The music changed, my voice changed, but my approach to making records has always been the same: I’ve always known what I was doing.”
Now, six decades later, the Decca Recordings stand as a full-circle tribute to Marianne Faithfull’s vision, artistry, and enduring legacy — a body of work that helped define the sound and soul of the 1960s.
