VIDEO OUT NOW; PANGEA PERFORMANCE SET FOR FRIDAY, DECEMBER 22
 News item from the current issue of Rolling Stone: “Two years ago, Marianne Faithfull told Rolling Stone about her ongoing battle with Covid-19. “It’s terrible,” she said. “I got long-term Covid, where you get better from the virus, but you have leftover [symptoms]. Apparently, they now think that you do get better from long-term Covid; it’s not forever. That is good.” To help Faithfull with mounting health costs, more than a dozen artists have recorded covers of songs for a benefit album, The Faithful: A Tribute to Marianne Faithfull, for her. Cat Power and Iggy Pop teamed to recreate her uniquely cutting rendition of John Lennon’s “Working Class Hero,” Shirley Manson and Peaches collaborated on the bawdy “Why’d Ya Do It,” and Lydia Lunch recorded “Love, Life, and Money.” Guitarist Barry Reynolds, who played on Faithfull’s Broken English album, joined Tammy Faye Starlite for Broken English’s “The Ballad of Lucy Jordan.” In light of this, we thought to offer Tammy Faye’s video for “The Ballad of Lucy Jordan” and encourage you to share it. https://youtu.be/Pjnc7lkQj60?si=EB17iPvpltwr8k3a The song is, of course, one of the cornerstones of Faithfull’s groundbreaking Broken English album. Tammy, who has portrayed Marianne Faithfull in numerous performance pieces, worked with Barry Reynolds who had a hand in writing half of the album’s tracks including the title song. “..Lucy Jordan” was written by Shel Silverstein, the author, poet, cartoonist, playwright and Grammy-winning songwriter. He was responsible for a range of innovative hits for a widely diverse array of talented performers including Johnny Cash (“A Boy Named Sue”) Dr. Hook (“The Cover of ‘Rolling Stone’,” “Sylvia’s Mother”), Waylon Jennings, Bobby Bare, Loretta Lynn, Brenda Lee, Judy Collins and Jerry Lee Lewis. The video was directed by Michael Schiralli with the aforementioned Reynolds providing instrumental accompaniment. Schiralli, who has worked with Tammy Faye numerous times in the past on her portrayals of both Faithful and Nico, is directing the latest production of She’s a Rainbow: Marianne Faithfull Sings the Songs She Inspired – A Cabaret Fantasia Revisited (Part 2 of the CS Blues Series) that returns to Pangea for one performance on Friday, December 22. Last month’s performance of the piece sold out two months in advance, so those hoping to bear witness will be well advised to purchase tickets as soon as possible. Ticket link, More about She’s A Rainbow: Marianne Faithfull Sings the Songs She Inspired – A Cabaret Fantasia Revisited (Part 2 of the CS Blues Series) “..(Starlite’s) mastery of Ms. Faithfull’s singing voice is extraordinary, down to the tremolo that punctuates some words like a stifled sob.” – Elizabeth Vincentelli/NY Times Pangea, New York’s most celebrated intimate avantgarde venue, hosts Tammy Faye Starlite for an encore engagement of her new performance piece focused on the music, life and struggles of legendary British vocalist and cultural icon Marianne Faithfull. Her earlier portrayal of Faithfull, performing the landmark album Broken English, was described by Rolling Stone’s David Fricke as “a thoroughly modern tale of adventure, abyss and hard-won vengeance — one of the most brutally frank albums of its time, made flesh again, in poignant lethally honest character.” December 22 marks the return of Starlite’s latest conceptual piece: She’s A Rainbow: Marianne Faithfull Sings The Songs She Inspired, subtitled A Cabaret Fantasia Revisited (Part 2 of The CS Blues Series). The show, tickets for which are now available, is described as “Marianne Faithfull (manque) sings the songs that were written for and/or about her, ostensibly by other (less erudite) songwriters, but really through the prism of her dreams via uninvited intrusion into her unconscious mind. She will also perform some of her more well-known covers and perhaps she will tolerate a revisitation from a familiar phantom – all in the service of expanding upon the theme of identity, with spare arrangements suitable for the medium of cabaret (which is also Marianne’s sobriquet). Keys change, tunings melt, myths vanish. She might become someone else in the process, who knows. She comes in tears and horses.” The show is directed by Michael Schiralli with musical backing by Richard Feridun, Joe McGinty, Jared Michael Nickerson, and Barry Reynolds, the latter of whom was Marianne Faithfull’s most constant later career collaborator having had a hand in writing half of the Broken English repertoire. Praise for Tammy Faye Starlite’s portrayal of Marianne Faithfull “Tammy Faye Starlite’s channeling of Marianne Faithfull is not so much tribute as celebration. She assumes Marianne’s persona with a sly and respectful humoresque, inhabiting the songs, constructing a virtual biography that interprets and reveals the inner artist who created Broken English, whose tale is one of triumph and transcendence Tammy’s resurrection is yet another life unfolding, in a performance that bares the soul and touches the heart.” – Lenny Kaye/Author of You Call It Madness/Little Steven’s Underground Garage SiriusXM “Tammy Faye Starlite’s performance of Marianne Faithfull’s Broken English in Why’d You Do It? channels all of that album’s terror, ferocity and vulnerability — and then some. …her portrayal has grown more passionate, more visceral, more provocative, more unnerving. The lines between the two women fracture, and the result is shattering — and profoundly moving.” – Anthony DeCurtis/ Author of Lou Reed: A Life “..brilliantly inhabits the outsized persona of Marianne Faithfull…. (an) alternately stark and darkly funny performance….” – Steve Futterman/The New Yorker “Having produced many records with Marianne as well as being a close friend for 34 years, I was reluctant to see Tammy Faye as Marianne. I have to admit that I was astonished as Tammy does not imitate Marianne at all. She totally captures the feeling of being with her which is an amazing achievement… and the audience went apeshit. So, what can I say? Just go… Tammy Faye got it right.” – Hal Willner/legendary music producer “So here in 2019 we were blessed (or perhaps damned?) to have Tammy Faye Starlite replicate this ground-breaking album, a tour de force performance of the comeback of a major artist…Tammy Faye morphs into Marianne with vigor, rage, savagery. And songs are interspersed with often hilarious or, more often, scary catatonic rants about fucking anything that comes to mind. Now that I have been exposed to the unsurpassable talent of Tammy Faye Starlite it is my intention to keep her sharply on the radar.” – Steve Nardoni/Theater Pizzazz |
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