Sawt Falasteen - Stones lead tributes to 'beautiful' Marianne Faithfull, dead at 78

The death of the British singer-songwriter was announced by a spokesperson who said in a statement that she would be "dearly missed" by her legions of fans the world over.

Posting an old black-and-white picture of the two of them, her past lover Jagger said he was "so saddened" by the news.

Faithfull was "so much part of my life for so long. She was a wonderful friend, a beautiful singer and a great actress. She will always be remembered," he wrote on Instagram.

In recent years, the British pop-rock balladeer, with a distinctive low voice in her later career, had battled illness, including breast cancer and a severe bout of Covid.

Faithfull got her first break in 1964, after being discovered by Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham.

She shot to fame with her hit "As Tears Go By", written by Jagger and guitarist Keith Richards, who were introduced to her by Oldham.

Richards on Thursday sent condolences to the singer's family, adding: "I am so sad and will miss her. Love Keith."

Faithfull's first hit was followed by a string of successful singles, including "Come And Stay with Me", "This Little Bird", "Summer Nights" and "The Ballad of Lucy Jordan".

She was long known for her tempestuous relationship with Jagger, and they moved in together when she was just 19, although she had already been briefly married and had a young son.

She also acted in films including "The Girl on a Motorcycle", in which she played opposite French star Alain Delon, and various theatre productions.

- 'Deeply missed' -

"It is with deep sadness that we announce the death of the singer, songwriter and actress Marianne Faithfull," a statement from her spokesperson sent to AFP said.

"Marianne passed away peacefully in London today, in the company of her loving family. She will be dearly missed."

Despite being feted during her relationship with Jagger, Faithfull was to become addicted to cocaine in a career of ups and downs.

She enjoyed the highs of sudden fame and fortune, but also deep lows of drug addiction and homelessness, and emerged on the other side with tales to tell.

She was famously found wearing nothing but a fur rug in a highly publicised police drugs raid in 1967 that saw both Jagger and Richards convicted.

She left Jagger in May 1970 as her life spiralled out of control and ended up living rough for nearly two years on the streets of London.

She told AFP in 2014: "Seriously, some of my memories of the Sixties are wonderful and some of them are horrible."

But she coyly refused to go into more detail, insisting: "They're my memories. They're not for the public."

Her 1979 album "Broken English" breathed new life into her faltering career. She earned a Grammy nomination for the album in 1981.

And she reinvented herself again as a jazz and blues singer with the critically acclaimed 1987 release "Strange Weather".

- 'Yearning, melancholy' -

Over a long career with more than 20 albums to her name, Faithfull was to attract a stream of younger artists keen to work with her, including PJ Harvey, Jarvis Cocker and Beck.

In 2006 she revealed that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer from which she recovered. She was also known to have suffered from Hepatitis C.

Ever the survivor, she was to face one of her hardest trials with the pandemic when she suffered a brutal dose of Covid-19 in 2020, telling AFP it had left her struggling with the effects of long Covid which had affected her voice.

Asked if she would be able to sing again, she said by phone: "Darling, I don't know. I hope I can. I do singing practice once a week. A friend comes over and plays my lovely guitar and I practice.

"It's an awful thought," she added. "Whatever happens, I can't change it."

Far from being defeated though, she spent months completing an album which she had begun before the pandemic.

It features her reading in her haunting voice some of her favourite poetry -- Byron, Shelley, Keats and other 19th century romantics -- with backing music from stars including Warren Ellis, Nick Cave and Brian Eno.

Faithfull lived for a period in Paris, and her friend, the singer and supermodel Carla Bruni, said: "Goodbye my dearest Marianne" in an Instagram post.

"Rest in Peace with the angels my friend."

Writing after news of her death, Guardian pop critic Alexis Petridis said: "Something about Faithfull's performances injected a note of eeriness: her vocals were more yearning and melancholy than the songs needed them to be."

Q.Bulbul--SF-PST