Marianne Faithfull didn't have to open her mouth to receive a recording contract.  As the story goes, so vividly recounted in the liner notes to the new box set Cast Your Fate to the Wind: The U.K. Decca Recordings, the young woman was so striking in beauty and presence that impresario Andrew Loog Oldham didn't hesitate to sign her on sight. (Even her name was made for stardom!)  But it was just as clear that she was no ordinary pop starlet chasing dreams in Swingin' London. Faithfull was remarkably clear-eyed, quipping to NME, "In the pop business, talent doesn't count." Thankfully, she had it...in abundance.

Cast Your Fate to the Wind: The Complete U.K. Decca Recordings 1964-1969 brings together all four of the late artist's original U.K. releases for the label; typical of the era, the U.S. albums released under her name were resequenced and redesigned.  As lovingly curated, produced, and annotated, as well as beautifully remastered, by Andrew Batt with Marianne's full participation, the 6CD box is one of the year's most essential.

It was clear from the very beginning that Marianne Faithfull wasn't going to be pigeonholed. After a strong showing with the singles "As Tears Go By" and "Come and Stay with Me," Decca wanted a pop album. Marianne wanted a folk album. She got both.  Even more unusually, both Marianne Faithfull - the pop album - and Come My Way - the folk album - were released on the same date, April 15, 1965.

For Marianne Faithfull, producer-arranger Mike Leander brought a baroque pop sensibility to his charts.  The song selection was personal to Marianne, as she explained to Andrew Batt: "Over time this perception has developed that I was somehow coerced into making these pop songs by Decca top brass, but nothing like that ever happened.  Nobody ever interfered with us or told us what to do [at least not musically].  It was just Mike and I and we did what we wanted."  As such, some of Marianne's favorite songwriters were represented on the album, including Jackie DeShannon with "Come and Stay with Me" (first issued as a single that reached No. 4 on the U.K. Singles Chart) and "In My Time of Sorrow," the latter of which was tailor-made for Marianne.  Mick Jagger and Keith Richards' ballad "As Tears Go By," Marianne's top ten debut 45, was also reprised on the LP.

Faithfull put her stamp on a Burt Bacharach/Hal David gem with "If I Never Get to Love You," first recorded in 1962 by Lou Johnson and one of the B&D copyrights of the era not recorded by Dionne Warwick.  Marianne brought a melancholic sweetness and lilt to Bacharach's beguiling, typically twisty melody.  A bright, shimmering, and youthful take on The Beatles' "I'm a Loser" was another unexpected highlight.

The vocalist was delicate on Leander's adaptation of a French chanson, "He'll Come Back to Me," and her affinity for the language and style was also clear on David Whitaker's "Plaisir D'Amour," Andre Popp and Jean-Jacques Debout's "They Never Will Leave You," and Jon Mark's "Paris Bells."  Both Leander and Faithfull contributed songs to the album, with Marianne debuting as a writer via her lyrics to the galloping "Time Takes Time" and Leander supplying "What Have I Done Wrong."

American singer Malvina Reynolds' "What Have They Done to the Rain" was as much folk as pop, though Leander's production emphasized the latter.  Nonetheless, it proved to demonstrate Faithfull's versatility at this early age.  A jaunty cover of the Herman's Hermits/Goldie and the Gingerbreads hit "Can't You Hear My Heartbeat" feels out of place within the ethereal sound of the album, but Marianne's good-natured, sweet vocal keeps it from disappointing.  Only a rote cover of Tony Hatch's "Downtown," an international smash for Petula Clark, lacks energy and individuality.

For Come My Way, Jon Mark produced as well as played acoustic guitar, joined by Big Jim Sullivan on guitar and John Paul Jones on bass.  "Tony [Calder at Decca] couldn't understand why I wanted to do the folk record," Marianne confessed to Andrew Batt.  "He thought most of the songs were unbearably twee and what was the point when I should be putting my best efforts into scaling the heights of pop stardom?"  Yet she remained firm.  "In the end I think he thought that at least it made me seem more sophisticated than the other songbirds, and the whole thing tied in rather well with the publicity machine's idea of the convent-educated, folky bohemian child-woman that Andrew Loog Oldham's press release had sold me on."

Come My Way was recorded at a different studio (IBC) than its companion album (Decca No. 2 and Lansdowne) but still feels of a piece thanks to Faithfull's vocal instrument.  Mark's original title track set the tone for the straightforward, largely unadorned beauty of the album.  Inspired by beloved records from Odetta, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Ian and Sylvia, and Joan Baez, Come My Way primarily but not exclusively celebrated the American folk boom.

One of the most familiar items on the LP is Ian Tyson's "Four Strong Winds," rendered with sensitivity and confidence by the singer.  "House of the Rising Sun," given a rock makeover by The Animals in 1964, returned to its folk roots in Marianne's Odetta-inspired reading.  John Paul Jones' jazz bass added gravitas to the recording.

The Korean War-era lament "Portland Town" juxtaposes the quavering sweetness of Marianne's voice with the sad, haunting lyric; the Appalachian folk song "Black Girl" is an even more unflinching portrait of a woman in crisis.  The rousing "Lonesome Traveler" was performed in the mold of The Seekers' rendition, while the Canadian/Irish traditional tune "Mary Ann" was inspired by Chad and Jeremy's recording.  "Once I Had a Sweetheart" was the lone British folk song on Come My Way.

A couple of spoken-word pieces gave the album further variety including a playful setting of Lewis Carroll's nonsense poem "Jabberwock" (oh, frabjous day!) and "Full Fathom Five" from Shakespeare's The Tempest.  (Marianne had performed in the play.)  Come My Way ends on an upbeat note with "Bells of Freedom."  Though both Marianne Faithfull and Come My Way charted well, the folk album edged out the pop set by three spots when it reached No. 12 on the U.K. Albums Chart.

For her next Decca long-player, Marianne continued on the folk path of Come My Way, this time concentrating on British folk.  Mike Leander was back in the producer's chair for the April 1966 release of North Country Maid, but Jon Mark again created the arrangements - aided and abetted by guitarist Mick Taylor (not the future Stones member) - for the set featuring songs by Bert Jansch (the sexually-charged "Green Are Your Eyes"), Cyril Tawney ("Sally Free and Easy"), and Donovan ("Sunny Goodge Street," an unusually urbane song for the more rustically-minded album).

Marianne gorgeously delivered Mark's arrangement of "Scarborough Fair" some eleven months before Simon and Garfunkel would propel the traditional English ballad up the pop charts.  Paul Simon learned the song from Martin Carthy who learned it from Ewan MacColl.  He had collected the melody from Mark Anderson in 1947.  MacColl's poignant, austere "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" is also here years before Roberta Flack popularized it; Faithfull's artistry as a vocalist is in full evidence with her moving reading here.

American singer-songwriter Tom Paxton's "The Last Thing on My Mind" found Marianne accompanied by Jon Mark on guitar, giving an unusual and breezily rhythmic spin to the melody (which had been based on the British sea shanty "The Leaving of Liverpool," handily fitting it into the album's British theme).  Faithfull returned to the Shakespearean milieu with "How Should I Your True Love Know," a song for Ophelia in the Bard's Hamlet.  An Eastern flavor imbues "She Moved Through the Fair" with Big Jim Sullivan on sitar, and "Wild Mountain Thyme" which features a surbahar (or bass sitar) with a sarod.

The ethereal sound of North Country Maid lends the LP a hypnotic air, with the Paxton composition bringing the most tempo.  Faithfull's next LP would bring her full circle to pop music.

The March 1967 release of Loveinamist (roughly the equivalent of the U.S. album Faithfull Forever) was held up so Marianne could add songs by Jackie DeShannon, Tim Hardin, and Donovan.  Ultimately, it would share five of its twelve tracks with its U.S. counterpart.

Her single of The Beatles' "Yesterday" is just the second cover of one of the world's most-recorded songs, having arrived as a single a mere two weeks after Matt Monro's George Martin-produced rendition.  Paul McCartney even attended the session which featured a 100-person choir supporting Faithfull's quivering lead vocal.  Like Yesterday, John D. Loudermilk's Tennessee Williams-inspired "This Little Bird" was another previously released single which was included on Loveinamist.

The strongest songs, not unsurprisingly, were those championed by the singer.  DeShannon's "You Can't Go Where the Roses Go" finds Marianne channeling the songwriter's vocal character.  (You can hear Jackie's demo on the recently-released Love Forever: Demo Recordings 1966-1968 collection.)  Jackie also gifted Marianne "With You in Mind" which she made her own, transforming the original's fusion of gospel, country and R&B into dark-hued folk-pop.

Donovan was responsible for no fewer than three songs on Loveinamist.  "In the Night Time," a.k.a. "Hampstead Incident," preceded his own recording's release on 1967's Mellow Yellow.  Mike Leander's woozy strings added the perfect accompaniment to the trippy lyric.  "Young Girl Blues" and "Good Guy" both appeared on 1966's Sunshine Superman.  Tim Hardin's "Don't Make Promises" was a well-chosen vehicle for Marianne's folk-pop stylings, adding brass to the soundscape, while "Reason to Believe" was even better.  Her devastating interpretation emphasized the song's melancholia which was sometimes lost thanks to the prettiness of the melody.

Sandie Shaw's usual tunesmith, Chris Andrews, supplied Marianne with "Your Love Has Gone."  Though orchestrated to the nines, the ballad is a bit too meandering to have earned classic status.  Bob Lind's "Counting" and Michel Legrand and Jacques Demy's "I Will Wait for You" in its original French ("Ne Me Quitte Pas," not to be confused with the Jacques Brel song of the same title) are considerably stronger.

Loveinamist concludes on a stirring and unexpected note with Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim's rapturous "I Have a Love."  Marianne had seen West Side Story on the West End, and delivered the lyric with passion over a suitably cinematic arrangement.  Though Bernstein's melody is a bit big for Marianne by her own admission, it ends the LP on a high note.

Yet Loveinamist proved to be Faithfull's final album for a decade.  The box set finishes off the Decca story with the newly-compiled 2-CD set, Something Better: The Singles, B-Sides, and Rarities.  These 27 tracks are a Faithfull treasure trove, with alternative versions of album cuts, mono and stereo versions of the seminal Jagger/Richards/Faithfull cut "Sister Morphine," the dramatic Gerry Goffin/Carole King/Phil Spector showstopper "Is This What I Get for Loving You," the Goffin/Barry Mann single "Something Better," a cover of The Mamas and The Papas' "Monday, Monday," and more. A few previously unreleased tracks sweeten the pot including Vince Guaraldi's "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" and alternative versions of "She Moved Thru' the Fair" and "Good Guy."  These two discs are a miniature history of mid-1960s pop from one of the era's most memorable vocalists.

Note that this set isn't the final word on this period, as a handful of tracks received U.S. releases only and therefore fall out of its purview including Faithfull Forever's "Some Other Spring," "Lucky Girl," and "I'm the Sky."  Andrew Batt revisited that album for Record Store Day 2024 on vinyl, but a CD release hasn't yet materialized.  Perhaps a U.S. albums set could be in the offing?  One hopes so.

As designed by Eric Torino, Cast Your Fate to the Wind: The Complete U.K. Decca Recordings 1964-1969 is attractively packaged in a clamshell case with a squarebound 76-page booklet.  The individual wallets are of the deluxe variety, with spines and protective inner sleeves (other than Something Better, which is a gatefold sans inner sleeve).  The booklet has Andrew Batt's detailed album-by-album essays, drawing on the candid and insightful commentary of the late artist.  A set of five photo cards rounds out this package which is beautiful inside and out.

Marianne Faithfull hasn't always received full credit for her vocal artistry, with the press often concentrating on the more sensational aspects of her remarkable personal story.  With this set, her music, happily, comes first, and it's as stunning now as it was sixty years ago.

Cast Your Fate to the Wind: The Complete U.K. Decca Recordings 1964-1969 is available now at: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada.  As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases.​​