Marianne Faithfull Sings Kurt Weill

Booze, drugs and cigarettes have changed '60s folk pop balladeer Marianne Faithfull's voice from lightly angelic ("As Tears Go By") to a cabaret-style throaty rasp--making her the perfect interpreter for Kurt Weill and Bertold Brecht's hard-edged theatrical collaborations in Berlin during the '20s and '30s. Captured live at the Montreal Jazz Festival in 1997, Faithfull sings 10 songs in all (eight of which hail from her 1997 album 20th Century Blues), including "Alabama Song," "Pirate Jenny," "Complainte de la Seine," "Boulevard of Broken Dreams," and "Street Singer's Farewell" (actually "Mack the Knife" with lyrics different from the popular Bobby Darin version). Oddly, "Falling In Love Again"--immortalized by Marlene Dietrich--is omitted here, but Faithfull does perform Harry Nilsson's "Don't Forget Me," while also relating a macabre yet humorous story about her friend Harry's double untimely end (she claims he died under anesthetic during a root canal and then disappeared into a crack in the earth the day before his funeral when an earthquake struck L.A.--which may be an apocryphal tale, but the dates do jibe). Accompanied by Paul Trueblood on piano, this Dolby Digital 5.1 enhanced disc, which also features a half-hour press conference, will appeal to fans of Weill and/or Faithfull, as well as aficionados of the signature world-weary lethargic style of Weimar cabaret, and is therefore a strong optional purchase. Aud: P. (R. Pitman)