Titus writes:
First, many thanks to Lex for letting me choose the
material for last week’s playlist – I hope you enjoyed my selection.
Second, I am resuming blogging this week with emphasis on a solo
American singer/songwriter that I greatly admire – Cat Power. You
won’t be at all surprised that this is her stage name rather than her
real name, and she was born as Charlyn Marie Marshall in Atlanta,
Georgia, although nowadays she is known as Chan (pronounced Shawn)
Marshall or Cat Power. Her voice is fairly deep and husky, and over
her 12 albums, many people have noticed the constant evolution of her
songs, with a mix of blues, folk, soul and even punk. ‘L.A. Weekly’
found most of her songs rather melancholy, and described her as “The
Queen of Sadcore” - a label that Cat Power herself disputed. As a
teenager she listened to The Smiths, Siouxsie & the Banshees, and
The Cure, plus her stepfather’s record collection which included Otis
Redding, Creedence Clearwater Revival and the Rolling Stones. Perhaps a
major event in her career was in 1996, when she signed for Matador
Records, whom she was with for 22 years.
She
made 3 sessions for John Peel, with one recorded at ‘Peel Acres’ on 18
June 2000 – this became famous in that she belted out 11 cover
versions of tunes, including Dylan’s ‘Hard times in New York Town’ and
Oasis’s ‘Wonderwall’. To complement the original material that she was
writing, she made the 2000 LP ‘The Covers Album’. Matador released
this, but the contract for it allegedly consisted of a Post It note
signed by herself and the founder of the Record Company. After a
flirtation with the fashion industry, who liked her ‘neo grunge’ look,
there was a hiatus until 2003, when Chan released her first album of
original material in five years called ‘You are Free’.
In
January 2006, Cat Power released, to great acclaim, her seventh album
‘The Greatest’ . This was a Southern soul-influenced LP of new
material, augmented by several Memphis studio musicians, and unlike her
previous work, gained mainstream success, making its debut in the
Billboard chart at No. 34. ‘The Greatest’ won her the ‘Shortlist Music
Prize’ making Chan Marshall the first woman to win this honour. To
continue my ‘Not a lot of people know that’ series that you all know
and love, Chan became a celebrity spokesperson for a new line of
jewellery from World famous fashion & perfume company Chanel.
Apparently Karl Lagerfeld had seen her smoking a cigarette outside the
Mercer Hotel in New York, and chose her for the soundtrack to his
Spring 2007 fashion show.
In
2008, Cat Power formed her own band called the Dirty Delta Blues Band,
and her iconic ‘Song to Bobby’ (tribute to Bob Dylan) appeared on the
‘Juke box’ album. During the same year, Chan and her band recorded
their version of David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’ for a Lincoln car
commercial. Fast forward to 2012, and Cat Power released her most
successful album to date called ‘Sun’, featuring her newly written
material, and this received a media review of “a unique album, and
worthy of a four star rating”. Journalist Sarah Grant referred to it
as “a passionate album of electronic music filtered through a
singer-songwriter’s soul”. I’m not a chart person as you know, but it
is a fact that the LP debuted at No 10 in the Billboard chart. In 2023
Marshall released her first live album, called ‘Cat Power sings Bob
Dylan;The 1966 Royal Albert Hall concert’ and this year embarked upon a
tour in support of the record.
So,
that’s a whirlwind tour of Cat Power – broadly speaking, she and my
favourite British female artiste PJ Harvey share similar traits, in
that they are constantly changing and evolving. I hope you like the
track I have requested Lex to play, ‘Cross Bones Style‘ from the ‘Moon
Pix’ album, which can be found here.
