Strange Weather

Enamored with her unusual sense of style, producer Hal Willner invited Marianne Faithfull to participate on a tribute album to Kurt Weill. The collaboration went so well that talk of a complete album evolved into the real thing with 1987’s Strange Weather, one of the most powerful albums of Faithfull’s long, difficult career. Her voice is a weathered croak, an ominous call from a dark corner where the innocence of her first hit, “As Tears Go By,” is given a shuddering reworking that fits perfectly alongside torch-standards such as “Yesterdays” and “Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” Leadbelly’s “I Ain’t Goin’ Down to the Well No More” (done a capella), Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan’s “Strange Weather” and Bob Dylan’s “I’ll Keep It With Mine.” With an A-list of instrumentalists from the Voidoids guitarist and Lou Reed sideman Robert Quine and bassist Fernando Saunders to jazz impressionist Bill Frisell, the Band’s Garth Hudson and New Orleans piano extraordinaire Dr. John, Strange Weather is a dream team brought to life with a perfect repertoire and a vocalist who eerily sounds almost like a ghost.