FanPost

6/14/16 OT: Marsha Hunt

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Music[edit]

Although Hunt indicates that she had no great musical talent,[1] she worked as a singer for 18 months after arriving in England.[3] In February 1967 Hunt took a singing job with Alexis Korner's trio "Free at Last" so that she could earn her fare back home.[3] She did not use it, but remained, and in 1968 joined the group Ferris Wheel.[3] That same year, Hunt achieved national fame in England when she appeared as "Dionne" in the rock musical Hair, a box-office smash on the London stage.[2] Hunt only had two lines of dialogue in Hair, but she attracted a lot of media attention and her photo appeared in many newspapers and magazines.[3] Her photograph was used on the poster and playbill of the original London production, photographed by Justin de Villeneuve.[9] Hunt says that the role was a perfect fit for her, expressing who she actually was.[2] She was one of three Americans featured in the London show, and when the show began she had no contract to perform.[3] When the show opened she was featured in so many stories that she was offered a contract right away.[3] Hunt played at the Jazz Bilzen[10] and Isle of Wight music festivals in August 1969 with her backup band "White Trash".[11] Hunt's first single, a cover of Dr John's "Walk on Gilded Splinters", was released on Track Records in 1969; it became a minor hit.[12] An album, Woman Child (in Germany released under the title Desdemona), followed in 1971.[12] In May 1977 an album with disco songs was released in Germany with the title Marsha. It was recorded at Musicland Studios in Munich and produced by Pete Belotte (coproducer with Giorgio Moroder of many Donna Summer albums)

Hunt met Marc Bolan in 1969 when she went to the studio where Bolan's group was recording "Unicorn".[12] Tony Visconti said that when Bolan and Hunt met, "[y]ou could see the shafts of light pouring out of their eyes into each other.... We finished the session unusually early, and Marc and Marsha walked out into the night hand in hand."[12] According to Hunt, the relationship between the two was based on more than physical attraction, though she also recalled that her commercial visibility put her in opposition to Bolan's philosophy that "the serious art of music...was validated by obscurity."[12]

In 1973, as a member of a panel organized by British magazine Melody Maker to discuss women in music and options open to black women, Hunt suggested that black women needed to make use of the "side-door" in the industry, entering as "the statuary representative" before they could make music under their own terms.[13]

In addition to her husband, Korner and Bolan, Hunt was professionally associated with such musicians as Long John Baldry, John Mayall and Elton John.[11]

Modeling[edit]

Three months after Hair opened, Hunt was on the cover of British high-fashion magazine Queen, the first black model to appear on their cover.[3] In 1968, Hunt posed nude for photographer Patrick Lichfield after the opening night for Hair[14] and the photo appeared on the cover of British Vogue′s January 1969 issue.[15] Almost 40 years later Hunt again posed nude for Litchfield,[14] recreating the pose for her Vogue Magazine cover five weeks after she had had her right breast and lymph glands removed to halt the spread of cancer.[16] The photo appeared on the cover of her 2005 book Undefeated, about her battle with cancer.[16] She was pleased to work with the photographer under such differing circumstances,[17] though in her autobiography she expressed confusion as to why the photo has been so often reprinted.[6] Hunt has also been photographed by Lewis Morley, Horace Ové, and Robert Taylor.[18]

Relationship with Mick Jagger[edit]

Hunt said in 1991 that she met Mick Jagger when the Rolling Stones asked Hunt to pose for an ad for "Honky Tonk Women", which she refused to do because she "didn't want to look like [she'd] just been had by all the Rolling Stones."[1] Jagger called her later, and their nine or ten-month affair began.[1] According to Christopher Sanford's book Mick Jagger: Rebel Knight, Hunt told journalist Frankie McGowan that Jagger's shyness and awkwardness won her over, but that their relationship was conducted mostly in private because their social scenes were very different.[19] In London, November 1970, Hunt gave birth to Jagger's first and her only child, Karis.[20] According to Hunt, the pair planned the child but never intended to live together.[1] According to Tony Sanchez in Up and Down with the Rolling Stones, Jagger considered proposing to Hunt but did not because he did not think he loved Hunt enough to spend the rest of his life with her, while Hunt, for her part, did not think they were sufficiently compatible to cohabit satisfactorily.[20]

When Karis was two years old, Hunt asked the courts for an affiliation order against Jagger and eventually settled out of court.[20] Jagger, who called the suit "silly",[20] has been close to Karis since then; he took her on holiday with his family when she was a teenager, attended her Yale graduation and her 2000 wedding, and he was at the hospital for the birth of her son in 2004.[7] As of 2008, he continued to see her and her family.[5] Citing the binding tie of a child, Hunt says she still sees Jagger, but has a closer relationship with Jagger's mother.[7] In 1991, Hunt indicated that she left the door open for Jagger to come back to his child and admired the fact that he did.[1]

Commenting on rumors about her life, Hunt said of an apocryphal story: "You must have read that on the internet. One reason I haven't had it removed is that it is proof that the Internet is full of absolute bullshit. Ridiculous things have been written about me so often that we won't even go there."[5]

In December 2012 Hunt sold a series of love letters written to her in the summer of 1969 by Mick Jagger. The letters were sold by Sotheby's of London.[21] The letters fetched £182,250 ($301,000).[22]

"Brown Sugar"[edit]

Christopher Sanford writes in his book Mick Jagger that when the Rolling Stones released the song "Brown Sugar" there was immediate speculation that it referred to Hunt or to soul singer Claudia Lennear.[19] In her 1985 autobiography, Real Life, Hunt acknowledged that "Brown Sugar" is about her, among a few other songs,[4] a fact she reiterated in her 2006 book Undefeated.[6] When Hunt was asked for an interview with the Irish Times in 2008 how she felt about the song, she said: "it doesn't make me feel any way at all."[5]

MARSHA HUNT - "Keep The Customer Satisfied"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ku6DdD5JHI8