walking upstream…
Cat Power
photo: hds · cc by 2.0 ↗Cat Power
sourcesWikipedia
Charlyn Marie 'Chan' Marshall grew up shuttled between relatives across the American South before landing in New York in 1992 and recording her earliest albums, 'Dear Sir' and 'Myra Lee,' with Sonic Youth's Steve Shelley in the room. Performing as Cat Power, she built a reputation through the 1990s for shows as fragile as they were riveting — sometimes stopping mid-song, sometimes turning her back to the crowd — before 1998's 'Moon Pix' and 2003's 'You Are Free' turned that same raw nerve into some of the decade's most quietly devastating songwriting. 'The Greatest' (2006), cut with veteran Memphis soul musicians, pushed her hushed voice into a warmer, more classicist frame, and she's kept returning to the songbook of her own heroes ever since, from 'The Covers Record' through a full re-creation of Bob Dylan's 1966 Royal Albert Hall concert.
the sound in question
1998
Cross Bones StyleCat Power
walk the tributaries ↓
Bob Dylan1960s · Folk / Folk rock / Rock
Marshall has called Dylan 'God Dylan' and traced her own sense of lyrics-as-thinking back to hearing 'Subterranean Homesick Blues' as a nine-year-old, saying his songwriting 'helped develop conscious thinking in millions of people.' In 2022 she went further than homage, performing and later releasing a full song-by-song recreation of his famously heckled 1966 Manchester show as 'Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert.'
listen: upstream & heresource: The Line of Best Fit ↗
1965
Like a Rolling StoneBob Dylan
2023
Like a Rolling Stone (Live at the Royal Albert Hall)Cat Power
listen forSet the 1965 studio 'Like a Rolling Stone' beside Marshall's own 2023 live version of the same song — she keeps Dylan's sneering cadence and internal rhyme intact while draining the vocal down to something hushed and almost mournful, turning a taunt into a lament.
Nina Simone1960s · Jazz / Soul / Classical
Marshall has named Nina Simone among the artists, alongside Dylan, whose songs continue to serve as inspiration for her own craft, and her career-long habit of reinterpreting other people's material — collected across 'The Covers Record,' 'Jukebox,' and 'Covers' — puts her in the same tradition of singers who treat a cover as a chance to inhabit rather than imitate a song.
listen: upstream & here
1966
Wild Is the WindNina Simone
2000
Wild Is the WindCat Power
listen forNina Simone's 1966 'Wild Is the Wind' is a slow-building, string-laced torch song; Cat Power's 2000 version on 'The Covers Record' strips it to voice and guitar, keeping the same aching melodic line while making the arrangement almost unbearably spare.
Otis Redding1960s · Soul / R&B
Marshall grew up on her stepfather's record collection, where Otis Redding became, in her words, 'one of my favorite musicians of all time.' Recording 2006's 'The Greatest' in Memphis with veteran session players who had worked the same Southern soul circuit Redding came up in, she said simply of the connection: 'good, good, good.'
listen: upstream & heresource: Salon ↗
1966
Try a Little TendernessOtis Redding
2006
The GreatestCat Power
listen forOtis Redding's horn-driven, pleading 'Try a Little Tenderness' and Cat Power's 'The Greatest' both build slowly from restraint toward a swelling, brass-inflected climax, trading Redding's testifying shout for Marshall's quieter, more resigned version of the same soul-ballad arc.