Marianne Faithfull - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: BBC Four Sessions, LSO St. Luke's, London, Britain, 2-18-2009

I thought I was done with Marianne Faithfull and the BBC. She did a series of BBC studio sessions in the mid-1960s, and I made an album out of that. But her life spiraled downwards in the late 1960s due to drugs and other problems, causing her musical career to spiral downwards too. I thought that was the last of her and the BBC.

But Faithfull has had a remarkable revival to her career. After wandering in the musical wilderness for most of the 1970s, she came back strong with her 1979 album "Broken English." By that time, her voice had totally changed. But before she'd relied out outside songwriters, and by that time she'd become a capable songwriter of her own. Since then, she's put out many well received albums, although her sales haven't been that big.

I recently found out that she finally got back to the BBC in 2009 (unless there are other shows that I've missed, which is very possible). This concert was filmed for a BBC TV show called "BBC Four Sessions." But as far as I can tell it hasn't appeared as a music bootleg. I had to concert a video recording into mp3s. Still, the sound quality is excellent, with no flaws.

This concert took place shortly after the release of her 2008 covers album "Easy Come Easy Go." As a result, it heavily features songs from that album. But it also has some highlights from her career. Of particular note are two 1960s songs that she almost never did in concert, due to the drastic change in her voice, as well as her musical style: "Sister Morphine" and "As Tears Go By."

This concert is an hour and 13 minutes long

Oh, by the way, now that I've posted this, I changed the title of her 1960s BBC album, adding "Volume 1" to it.

UPDATE: On March 3, 2023, I updated the mp3 download file. I added three songs from the show that I'd previously missed: "Children of Stone," "Crazy Love," and "Sing Me Back Home." A kind commenter provided them for them. They were broadcast by the BBC as extras. That meant I had to guess where they appeared in the set. As it happens, she was pretty consistent in her set lists in 2009. For instance, "Sing Me Back Home" was always played as an encore. So I followed those trends.

There were two more songs from the show that I didn't include because the sound quality was much worse, only from an audience bootleg: "Easy Come Easy Go" and "Why D'Ya Do It."

01 Down from Dover (Marianne Faithfull)
02 talk (Marianne Faithfull)
03 Times Square (Marianne Faithfull)
04 talk (Marianne Faithfull)
05 Hold On Hold On (Marianne Faithfull)
06 The Ballad of Lucy Jordan (Marianne Faithfull)
07 talk (Marianne Faithfull)
08 Solitude (Marianne Faithfull)
09 talk (Marianne Faithfull)
10 Broken English (Marianne Faithfull)
11 talk (Marianne Faithfull)
12 In Germany Before the War (Marianne Faithfull)
13 talk (Marianne Faithfull)
14 Children of Stone (Marianne Faithfull)
15 Crazy Love (Marianne Faithfull)
16 talk (Marianne Faithfull)
17 Kimbie (Marianne Faithfull)
18 talk (Marianne Faithfull)
19 Dear God, Please Help Me (Marianne Faithfull)
20 The Crane Wife 3 (Marianne Faithfull)
21 Sister Morphine (Marianne Faithfull)
22 talk (Marianne Faithfull)
23 As Tears Go By (Marianne Faithfull)
24 Sing Me Back Home (Marianne Faithfull)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15218808/MarianneF_2009_BBSessionsVolum2BBFourSssionsLSOStLukes___2-18-2009_atse.zip.html

The cover photo comes from this exact date and location. But it appears to have been taken before or after the concert itself.

Marianne Faithfull - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1965-1967

I have to admit I'm not a big Marianne Faithfull fan. However, I'm keen to post all the worthy 1960s BBC albums that I can, since there hardly seems to be anyone else so far removing the BBC DJ talking over the music. Expect to see many more such BBC albums in the near future.

Faithfull's music career had a remarkable transformation. She started out in the mid-1960s with some hits that relied on her pure and high voice. But in the late 1960s she got heavily involved with drugs. Maybe it was that, or smoking, and/or other factors, but her voice changed drastically, dropping at least a full octave by the end of the decade! By the time of her big comeback album "Broken English" in 1979, her voice had become so low and gravely compared to what it was before that it's remarkable to consider it's the same person.

This album entirely dates to that earlier time when her voice was sweet and high. So if you only know her from her later era of more sustained success, prepare to be surprise. The style of music is drastically different too.

All the music here is officially unreleased. Eight of the 14 songs (plus the bonus track) that actually come from the BBC had the problem of BBC DJs talking over the music. (I'm looking at you yet again, Brian Matthew.) I used the X-Minus audio editing software to wipe that talking out while keeping the underlying music. Those are marked with "[Edit]" in the titles.

I've added three songs at the end that aren't from the BBC. "Plaisir d'Amour," sung in French, was broadcast on French TV in 1966. "Sadness" is from an obscure 1966 movie. And "C'e Chi Spera," sung in Italian, was from an Italian music contest and broadcast on TV.

The one bonus track sounds as good as the others. It's a bonus track because I don't like having two versions of the same song on one album, and that's the second version of that song.

01 Can't You Hear My Heartbeat [Edit] (Marianne Faithfull)
02 Come and Stay with Me (Marianne Faithfull)
03 In My Time of Sorrow [Edit] (Marianne Faithfull)
04 Go Away from My World [Edit] (Marianne Faithfull)
05 The Sha La La Song [Edit] (Marianne Faithfull)
06 This Little Bird (Marianne Faithfull)
07 Paris Belle [Edit] (Marianne Faithfull)
08 Summer Nights (Marianne Faithfull)
09 Lullaby (Marianne Faithfull)
10 The Last Thing on My Mind [Edit] (Marianne Faithfull)
11 Yesterday [Edit] (Marianne Faithfull)
12 As Tears Go By [Edit] (Marianne Faithfull)
13 Cockleshells (Marianne Faithfull)
14 Tomorrow's Calling (Marianne Faithfull)
15 Plaisir d'Amour (Marianne Faithfull)
16 Sadness (Marianne Faithfull with Ornette Coleman)
17 C'e Chi Spera (Marianne Faithfull)

Go Away from My World [Edit] (Marianne Faithfull)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15289189/MarianneF_1965-1967_BBSessionsVolum1_atse.zip.html

The cover photo of Faithfull dates to 1965, but I don't know anything else about it.

David Bowie - The 1980 Floor Show, The Marquee Club, London, Britain, 10-20-1973

I've posted five albums of David Bowie's BBC's performances, and I have one more to go. But before I post that one, I'm posting this, which is related. This was an hour long TV show that was a special edition of the weekly musical show "The Midnight Special."

In late 1973, Bowie had a peak of popularity at the tail end of his "Ziggy Stardust" phase (he'd have other peaks later). He'd put out the "Aladdin Sane" album early in 1973, and then the "Pin Ups" covers album on October 19, 1973. This show was meant to promote that album. (Although there were live performances that were filmed from October 18th to 20th, it wasn't broadcast until November 16th.)

Variety TV shows were all the rage in the 1970s, and Bowie wasn't popular enough to carry the show all by himself, so he brought along some musical guests that he liked. The chief one was Marianne Faithfull. I've included her performances as well as Bowie's, because I like her stuff. Plus, they did a duet together. The Troggs and a Spanish flamenco group called Carmen also played a couple of songs each, but I didn't include them. I like the Troggs, but their performances didn't impress me (they were way past their 1960s prime). I also wasn't impressed with Carmen, so I left their stuff out as well. If you want the full show, there are other bootlegs that have them.

This recording is rather unusual in that there's no crowd noise at all. Bowie and the others rehearsed and filmed their performances for three days straight, and some of those have crowd noise and some don't. I picked the ones that don't, for greater sound quality.

Note that this show was the very last time Bowie heavily referenced his Ziggy Stardust persona with his appearance and costume. But he also was already looking forward to his "Diamond Dogs" persona, which would result in the album of the same name in 1974. The show had the strange title "The 1980 Floor Show" despite taking place in 1973, because of his song "1984," which he played and would feature on the "Diamond Dogs" album. It's a play on words - think "1984 show."

The songs are presented in the exact same order they did on the TV broadcast, minus the Troggs and Carmen songs.

01 1984 - Dodo (David Bowie)
02 Sorrow (David Bowie)
03 Everything's Alright (David Bowie)
04 Space Oddity (David Bowie)
05 I Can't Explain (David Bowie)
06 As Tears Go By (Marianne Faithfull)
07 Time (David Bowie)
08 The Jean Genie (David Bowie)
09 20th Century Blues (Marianne Faithfull)
10 I Got You Babe (David Bowie & Marianne Faithfull)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15275904/DavidB_1973_1980FloorShwMrqueeClubLondnBritain__10-20-1973_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I started with the cover of a popular bootleg of the show, because I liked the font used. I made some changes to the text to include Marianne Faithfull's name. Then I found a good photo of Bowie and Faithfull together. However, they were separated by a couple of feet, so I edited the photo to move them closer together.