Cat Power
Chan Marshall has been called Cat Power since the late nineteen eighties. Growing up in the south of the USA, albeit moving around a hell of a lot, she moved to New York in 1990 and was introduced to the city’s free-jazz and experimental scene that would soon come to act as a musical home. In it she found like minded spirits open to her improvisational and experimental style of performing, among them Man or Astro-Man and fellow scenesters God Is My Co-Pilot, who funded the release of her debut single ‘Headlights’, pressing 500 copies for their Making of Americans label.
Steve Shelley, drummer for Sonic Youth, and Tim Foljahn of the band Two Dollar Guitar were both in attendance for a then 22 year-old Chan’s supporting set for Liz Phair in New York, 1994. Enraptured with her performance, they encouraged a nervous Cat Power to record a full length, 1995’s ‘Dear Sir’, adding their musical talent to that debut record and also to the following year’s subsequent LP, ‘Myra Lee’. Although released a year apart, both records were recorded on the same day in December 1994.
Yet none of Marshall’s records were particularly widely available until signing to Matador Records (with whom she remains to this day, and presumably beyond), who released the impeccable ‘What Would The Community Think?’ in 1996. However, after a three month promotional tour, the ever unpredictable Chan disappeared from the music scene altogether, taking up various jobs including babysitting and moving to a South Carolina farmhouse with partner Bill Callahan of Smog. Having seriously considered early artistic retirement, it wasn’t until a sleepless night and a particularly vivid nightmare that Marshall would return to music, prompted by a bad dream to write the majority of the album ‘Moon Pix’, considered by many to be her finest work.
Backing her on the record were Mick Turner and Jim White of the band The Dirty Three. The process took a mere eleven days, and was released in 1998. Once again though, despite a great critical reception for the album, Cat Power was struggling with performing live, stating that she’d grown tired of her own music. She started performing shows providing musical accompaniments for silent movies and sets full of unique cover versions, many of which would make it on to 2000’s seminal ‘The Covers Record’. Still many regard her ability to strip a song back to its bare essentials and make it her own as one of her greatest talents as an artist.
2003 would see Cat Power return to recording original material with ‘You Are Free’, an album that featured guest contributions from artists as varied as Dave Grohl, Eddie Vedder and Warren Ellis. A year later she released a DVD, ‘Speaking For Trees’, a fascinating piece of work which consisted of a two hour long single shot of our lady performing in a woodland, accompanied by a CD with one eighteen minute long song, ‘Willie Deadwilder’, with M Ward on guitar.
Though such a move may have pointed to her taking a more arty route from there on, with 2006’s ‘The Greatest’ Cat Power delivered probably her most accessible and certainly most successful album to date. It featured collaborations with Al Green’s guitarist Teenie Hodges and was supported by a rapturously received tour with the Memphis Rhythm Band, and even lead to a surprising yet wholly deserved nomination in the category of best international female at this year’s Brit Awards.
A few shows on that tour were however cancelled with Chan citing ‘health related issues’ as the cause of her inability to perform. In an interview with Venuszine she gave a frank and harrowing account of an alcohol related mental breakdown which lead to suicidal thoughts and time spent on a psychiatric ward in Miami. After some time in rehabilitation, she returned to play the rescheduled shows, ones which many would claim were amongst the best of her entire career, sets devoid of the nervousness, self-deprecation and confusion that had characterised some of her earlier performances.
These days, Cat Power is sober, together, on form, and planning many interesting projects including acting work with the likes of Wong Kar-Wai and Vincent Gallo and a scheduled appearance in a five hour long film entitled ‘American Widow’, set for release this year. Musically, there are plans for another covers record, and a follow up to ‘The Greatest’ entitled ‘Sun’, which looks set for a release in spring next year. This week however, the most pressing thing on the list is the release of her already classic ‘The Greatest’ single. And buying it is one of our most pressing ‘must do’ tasks also.
CAT POWER’S MYSPACE: Cat Power has four videos here, and 72,703 friends. Which is more than we have.
CAT POWER – OFFICIALLY THE GREATEST: Revamped when the latest album was released, this initially quite sparse looking official site is actually packed full of great music, videos and other worthy media.
CAT-ADOR RECORDS: Matador Records’ specially dedicated Cat Power page is about as up to date a news source as you’re likely to find. Bands like Belle and Sebastian, Mission of Burma and Yo La Tengo live here too.
CAT POWER DISCOGRAPHY: The wonderful Discog site provides a thorough overview of every Cat Power record. Even though you might think you do, you probably don’t own them all.
LIVE@ LONDON ROUNDHOUSE, 2006: …one of the most perfect, confident sets we’ve seen – from anyone, ever.
LIVE@ ATP, APRIL 2004…and, for balance, one of the most shambolic. Still great in it’s way, mind.