Her embittered take on John Lennon's "Working Class Hero" - from her 1979 rising-from-the-ashes new wave/disco stunner Broken English (Island) - breathed new (teeth-baring and seething) life into the original, and was perhaps the finest showcase for the Marianne Faithfull most of us think of in association with the name at this point. The late '60s and most of the '70s were not entirely kind to the vocalist - drug addiction, squalid living conditions - and 1979's bold re-entry into the airwaves introduced a considerably deeper and infinitely more serious voice than the fragile coo of the past.

She had lived a tough life in those intervening years, and all of the hardship and abuse brought an immeasurable amount of "life experience" to draw upon in the recording studio and onstage. Having thus remodeled herself as a grittier - but still classy and beautiful - raconteur of bruised hearts and broken dreams, Faithfull has channeled her reserves of gravitas into some masterful interpretive work over the years.

Her immersion into the work of Kurt Weill - revisited on several albums in her career - comes first to mind, along with her role as the Devil in Robert Wilson's staging of the William S. Burroughs/Tom Waits musical The Black Rider. The electro-flirtation Kissin Time (Virgin, 2002) included inspired renditions of Beck's "Nobody's Fault" and the old Jerry Goffin/Carole King-written ditty "I'm into Something Good," along with collaborations with Jarvis Cocker and Billy Corgan, among others. Before the Poison (Naïve/Anti-, 2004) - a decidedly edgier, guitar-based record - showcased spirited reads of several PJ Harvey compositions, along with fruitful join-ups with Nick Cave, Damon Albarn, and producer-film scorer par excellence Jon Brion.

Faithfull is clearly on a roll, as her latest, Easy Come, Easy Go so effortlessly demonstrates. Having reunited with producer and impeccable song-selector Hal Willner - the visionary behind countless all-star creative projects and owner of probably one of the most impressive Rolodexes in the music industry - she has once again found a central collaborator intuitive to her role and abilities as an interpreter.

Their work together on Strange Weather (Island, 1987) - a ghostly torch-song collection of covers of songs by Leadbelly, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, and a spine-tingling take on the old standard "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" - remains a highlight of her career, owing largely to the combination of song choice and smoky ambiance. Bill Frisell lent shimmering guitar textures, as did Robert Quine. Dr. John delivered some spooky hoodoo with moody piano twinklings. Lou Reed's longtime bass player, Fernando Saunders, brought fluid lines and lovely jazzy touches to the whole affair. So, yes, expectations were already high as soon as I caught word that Faithfull and Willner would be working together again, on a covers album with all-star cast - what would they tackle? Who would be brought into the fold as things progressed?

As it turns out, the pair together assembled a wildly diverse - and far from obvious - gathering of songs, electing to introduce newer compositions among the mix of more "classic" numbers. Hence, covers of songs by young upstarts Espers and the Decemberists sit next to readings of Dolly Parton, Duke Ellington, and Smokey Robinson. And if it sounds like an uncomfortable musical meet-up, fret not - Willner's thoughtful production treats the seemingly disparate material as friendly neighbors, and thus each slides relatively naturally into the next.

Further, Faithfull - careful reader that she is - approaches them all with the same sensitivity as Willner, and injects them with all sorts of nuance and a sense of becoming the song's subject. It is this skill that has made her such a sought-after collaborator, after all, and she obviously must have a hoot with these projects. How could she not? Consider this sampling of guest musicians: Marc Ribot and Sean Lennon on guitar, Greg Cohen (of John Zorn/Ornette Coleman/Tom Waits fame) on bass, Warren Ellis (Dirty Three/Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds) on violin, Jim White (Dirty Three/Boxhead Ensemble) on drums. Longtime Faithfull associate Barry Reynolds - responsible for co-writing many of the snarling numbers on Broken English - returns to guitar duties as well.

Then there's the roster of backup singers: Chan Marshall (a.k.a., Cat Power), Nick Cave, Antony Hegarty, Rufus Wainwright, Teddy Thompson, Keith Richards. A lot of energy and bodies - and personalities - in the studio, judging from the liner notes, and the results genuinely reflect this. It could have been a case of too many cooks in the kitchen, but any such disasters were avoided. Instead, Easy Come, Easy Go - parenthetically titled 10 Songs for Music Lovers - reflects the level of enthusiasm which spurred this project on in the first place. Even better: while so many others from her era of first prominence have seen their relevance fade with more recent recording ventures (Rod Stewart and the Rolling Stones jump to mind), Faithfull is still riding a career high. Not too shabby for a rock musician who just celebrated her 62nd birthday in December.

Faithfull's version of the Dolly Parton number "Down from Dover" kicks off the disc as quite a declaration-of-purpose. Rather than sticking to mere faithful reads of her source material, she instead throws herself into the text, so to speak, and thus she approaches the opening track with a discernibly more world-weary perspective than Parton's own holding-onto-hope approach to the lyrics. A tale of a woman's unwanted pregnancy and her prayers the child's father will return, the song certainly doesn't make for the lightest introduction, and Faithfull sings it as if the outcome has already been determined. Still, the breezy horns and Mussel Shoals groove are an effective foil for the downbeat themes at hand here.

Her read of Neko Case's "Hold on Hold On" - boasting backing vocals from Chan Marshall - storms along with a noticeable Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds bluster, thanks largely to the fevered rushes of organ (courtesy of Rob Burger) and devilishly unhinged electric violin from Warren Ellis. What follows - the Duke Ellington classic "Solitude" - might appear to be a wild juxtaposition on paper, but the slightly seedy, definitely Twin Peaks-y nightclub jazz vibe works well as a comedown of sorts from the full-on delirium of its predecessor's ending. Ribot's slinky-smooth lounge guitar - set against brushed drums, glowing organ, and a quintet of haunted clarinets - is a wonderful mood-maker, and Faithfull brings a palpable ache to her performance. Anyone who has succumbed to the moist-eyed magic of her torch-song recordings - especially Strange Weather - will fall pretty heavily for this one.

The Decemberists' "The Crane Wife 3" is given a fascinating work-over, thanks to Faithfull's sharing of the mic with Nick Cave and, once again, the amount of emotional weight she brings to the lyrics. "How were my eyes so blinded?" she cries out, probably already knowing the answer. When she is joined by Cave on the bruised chorus - "I will hang my head, hang my head low" - I inevitably find myself on the receiving end of some seriously sad spine-tingles.

Bessie Smith's "Easy Come Easy Go" is thoroughly convincing in its revisit of an era long behind us, with its deliciously woozy jazz and a production evoking that of old 78-rpm recordings. It also, for the record, contains some of the head-scratchingly odd clarinet textures I've heard in quite a while - big and gurgling and wonderfully cartoony.

The two longest tracks on the disc are also the most successful, each for different reasons. Faithfull gets into the epic sprawl and sense of impending doom that informed Espers' "Children of Stone" and stays there for eight minutes, floating out slow and purposeful legato notes over swelling strings, crashing drums, and elegant tendrils of piano. Rufus Wainwright's sighing, almost-disembodied vocal counterpart is a marvel of its own, but the combination of the two immensely pained voices is just breathtaking. It's a fairly reverent cover, but this doesn't diminish the fact that it is a daring, potent work.

Her take on Smokey Robinson's "Ooh Baby Baby," however, is an altogether different animal. Here, she and Antony Hegarty twist and turn and get splendidly vampy on the eight-minute-plus shape-shifting overhaul of what was formerly a relatively straightforward smooth R&B number. Starting off with sprightly piano twinkles, '70s AM gold wah-wah guitar, and a luxuriously lush bed of easygoing smoothness, the pair trades vocals like an Oughties Peaches and Herb - well, until the tempo picks up at the halfway mark and the hot-and-heavy electric guitar squeals into the mix.

From there, the song launches into a glitzy, garishly-bedazzled romp of what can best be described as cabaret-funk, with each vocalist releasing a flurry of R&B demons - vocalese, melisma, the whole works - over a sweaty, squawking groove. In time, it recedes back into its former state of lighter-than-air smoothness, but what a journey. Yes, it's huge and ridiculous and probably shouldn't work - but it does. Here's to having the guts to saying, "Aw, what the hell - why not?" and taking such a massive bungee-jump of an interpretation, Faithfull. You've pulled it off once again.

Here's a clip of "Hold on Hold On":