Cat Power
Cat Power |
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Cat Power is the stage name of American singer/songwriter Charlyn "Chan" Marshall (born Charlyn Marie Marshall on 21 January 1972). She is known for her minimalist style, sparse guitar and piano playing, and ethereal vocals.
Biography
Early life
The daughter of divorced parents, Chan (pronounced "Shawn") Marshall was born in Georgia. Marshall's father, Charlie, was a blues musician and itinerant pianist. Her childhood involved much upheaval, with Marshall living throughout the Southern United States (Greensboro, North Carolina; Bartlett, Tennessee; and Georgia and South Carolina), back and forth between parents and her grandmother. In interviews she has openly discussed her childhood and stated that the constant travelling prepared her for the touring life of a professional musician.
After dropping out of high school, she started performing under the name Cat Power while in Atlanta, backed by musicians Glen Thrasher, Marc Moore, and others. While in Atlanta, Marshall played her first live shows as support to her friends' bands, including Magic Bone and Opal Foxx Quartet. Due to her close relationships with the various people involved she has stated that her involvement in music at this time was primarily a social interest rather than an artistic one. She also stated in a 2007 interview for Soft Focus that the music itself was more experimental and that playing shows was often an opportunity to get drunk and for her friends to take drugs.[1]
1990s (Dear Sir – Moon Pix)
In 1992 she moved to New York City with Glen Thrasher. It was Thrasher who introduced her to New York's free-jazz and experimental music scene. In particular she cites a concert by Anthony Braxton with giving her the confidence to perform in public. Her first New York show was at a warehouse in Brooklyn and she has described her early New York shows as "more improvisational". [2] One of her shows during this period was as the support act to Man or Astro-man? and consisted of her playing a two string guitar and singing the word "no" for 15 minutes. [3] Around this time she made the acquaintance of God Is My Co-Pilot, a relationship that resulted in them releasing her first single Headlights in a limited run of 500 copies on their Making of Americans label.
In 1994 she opened for Liz Phair in New York. In attendance were Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth and Tim Foljahn of Two Dollar Guitar, who encouraged her to record, and played on her first two albums, 1995's Dear Sir and 1996's Myra Lee, the latter taking its name from Marshall's mother. Both albums were recorded in New York on the same day in December 1994 and display a lack of conventional song structures possibly influenced by the experimental music that Thrasher had introduced her to. In 1996 she was signed to Matador Records, and released her third album, What Would the Community Think, which spawned a single and music video, "Nude as the News".
In late 1996, following a three-month tour co-headlining with the band Guv'ner in support of the release of What Would the Community Think, Marshall disappeared from the music scene, initially working as a baby sitter in Portland, Oregon and then moving to a farmhouse in Prosperity, South Carolina with then boyfriend Bill Callahan. The plan was to permanently retire from public performance but during a sleepless night resulting from a nightmare, Marshall wrote several new songs. These songs would make up the bulk of Moon Pix. The record was recorded at Sing Sing Studios in Melbourne in eleven days with backing musicians Mick Turner and Jim White of the Dirty Three.[4] The album was well-received by critics, and gained her recognition in the indie rock scene. However, during subsequent tours Marshall states that she had grown tired of her own material. This resulted in a series of shows during 1999 where Marshall provided musical accompaniment to the silent movie The Passion of Joan of Arc. The shows combined original material and many covers, many of which would later see release on The Covers Record, a collection of cover songs recorded at various sessions in 1998 and 1999. A selection of covers that didn't make it on to the album were recorded at Peel Acres, home of the highly influential and legendary British DJ John Peel. The session was broadcast on his BBC Radio 1 show and featured Marshall's own interpretations of Bob Dylan's "Hard Times in New York Town" amongst others.
2000s (You Are Free – The Greatest)
In 2003 she resumed releasing original material with You Are Free, a diverse and critically applauded album which featured guest musicians such as Eddie Vedder, Dave Grohl, and the Dirty Three's Warren Ellis. A music video directed by Brett Vapnek, was released for the song "He War" and found moderate exposure on MTV2's Subterranean.
2004 saw the release of the critically polarizing DVD Speaking for Trees, which featured a single, nearly 2-hour static shot of Marshall performing in a woodland, and was accompanied by an audio CD containing the 18-minute song "Willie Deadwilder", featuring M. Ward on guitar. Also this year Marshall lent her vocals to the track "I've Been Thinking" from the Handsome Boy Modelling School album, White People. 2005 found Marshall out on the road again, touring the world and playing sold-out solo shows, including an Australian tour supporting Nick Cave and an appearance at Patti Smith's Meltdown festival. The shows largely consisted of material that would appear on her next album. In 2005 Marshall was featured on the song "Great Waves" from Dirty Three's album Cinder.
The Greatest, was released in January, 2006. This was not a greatest hits record but rather the Matador Records-arranged collaboration with Al Green's guitarist Teenie Hodges and many other talented musicians. Following it's release, Marshall announced the cancellation of her upcoming United States Tour, citing "health-related issues". A few days later, Matador announced the cancellation of her two shows in London and Paris. Marshall used the hiatus to recover from what she described as a "psychotic break" that had left her feeling suicidal and was brought on by mental exhaustion and alchohol abuse. As part of her recovery she was admitted to the Psychiatric ward at Miami's Mount Sinai Medical Center but left after a week, stating "being in there wasnt me."
She returned to live performance in April 2006, playing some of the most critically acclaimed shows of her career both with the Memphis Rhythm Band and as a solo performer, including a performance at a Bob Dylan tribute concert in New York. The show was a fundraiser for the charity Music for Youth, continuing a history of supporting good causes that has also included The Bereaved Israeli and Palestinian Parents' Circle, PETA and Fuck Cancer. She gave a first person account of her breakdown in a interview for the November 2006 issue of Spin.[5].
Since returning to the stage Marshall has contributed guest vocals to several albums. She duetted with model Karen Elson on an English cover of Serge Gainsbourg's "Je t'aime... moi non plus" for the tribute album Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited. She also sang lead vocal on the Ensemble track "Disown, Delete" and reworked "Revelations" with Yoko Ono for Ono's 2007 album Yes, I'm a Witch. She also performed guest vocals for Faithless and El-P.
In October 2006 she became the celebrity spokesperson for a line of jewelry from Chanel, beginning a series of non musical activities that continued into the following year during downtime between touring and recording comittments. In 2007 her voice could be heard in commercials for Cingular[6] and De Beers [7] in the United States and Garnier in the United Kingdom. Previously Marshall had done advertisements for GAP. In acting, she appeared Doug Aitken's MOMA installation Sleepwalkers[8] as a postal worker living in New York. Her big screen debut will come in the form of My Blueberry Nights, starring as Jude Law's girlfriend. [9] IMDB also lists her in the cast of a five hour odyssey titled American Widow, which might also have a 2007 release. [10] Marshall has also mentioned that she is interested in sending an audition tape to Saturday Night Live through Molly Shannon, although the idea is referred to jokingly.
On the musical front, Marshall put together a new band in Winter 2006 and has toured and recorded with them throughout 2007. The Dirty Delta Blues Band features Judah Bauer (from Blues Explosion), Gregg Foreman (Delta 72), Erik Paparazzi (Lizard Music), and Jim White (from Dirty Three). The band have toured North America and Europe, played at the All Tomorrow's Parties and Pitchfork festivals as well as the Chanel runway show in France and supported Interpol at Madison Square Garden.
Also in 2007, she became the first female ever to win the Shortlist Music Prize when The Greatest was voted album of the year in June. Earlier in the year she was nominated in the Best International Female category at the annual Brit Awards, alongside more mainstream artists like Christina Aguilera and Nelly Furtado. The Dirty Delta Blues band have recorded an album of covers called Jukebox which is expected to be released on January 22, 2008 on Matador Records.
Performance style
Traditionally, Marshall’s live shows have been notorious for their chaotic and unpolished nature, with songs beginning and ending abruptly or blending into one another without clear transitions. Marshall has in the past spoken of her severe stage fright. She has been known to stop playing in order to apologize for a self-perceived flaw in her performance. She has even cut short a few of her performances without explanation,[11] [12] on some occasions under the influence of alcohol. Marshall has admitted to abusing alcohol in the past, however according to a recent BBC interview, she is now sober. [13]These events have had a polarizing effect on Marshall’s fan base. Some have been alienated by what they perceive as Marshall’s lack of professionalism, while others have enjoyed what they see as a candid, honest, and spontaneous performance. Marshall is often very talkative during performances, usually cracking jokes.
Recently, Marshall's performance style has been said to be much more enthusiastic and professional. An article in Salon magazine [14] called The Greatest "polished and sweetly upbeat", stating that Marshall was finally "delivering onstage". In the article, Marshall states that her newfound musical collaborators and sobriety are largely responsible for her increased confidence onstage.
Marshall is notable both as a songwriter and as an innovative interpreter of other artists' songs. Her cover versions often ignore the melodies and lyrical hooks of the originals, as evidenced by her renditions of Dylan's "Knocking on Heaven's Door" and Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction", or alter the mood of the song altogether, as with her exclusive performance of Oasis' "Wonderwall" at a John Peel BBC Radio One session on July 20th, 2000. The music is similarly stripped down, often to little more than an electric guitar with a clean tone and her voice.
She often performs unreleased covers at her live shows. Her choice of covers over the years has revealed a widespread and eclectic taste in both new and old music, incorporating artists as diverse as Gnarls Barkley, the White Stripes, Bob Dylan, Nina Simone, and Jessie Mae Hemphill. She is constantly introducing new covers into her live performances though the unpredictability of her live shows has made the performance of certain songs a rarity, as is the case with her rarely performed version of "Wolf Among Wolves" by Will Oldham among others. In addition, her highly personalized version of "The House of the Rising Sun" is particularly notable in that it is an example of a traditional folk song being performed in the tradition of folk music, that of adding new lyrics to an old song to make it a more personal expression. Despite being popular for many years with artists such as Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger, this adaptation and personalizing of old folk songs is largely absent in modern music.
Discography
References in pop culture
- Jimmy Tamborello and Ben Gibbard recorded the song (This Is) The Dream of Evan and Chan for Dntel's Life Is Full Of Possibilities (2001). This eventually led to the duo's collaboration as The Postal Service. "Evan" is a reference to Evan Dando of the The Lemonheads and "Chan" is a reference to Marshall. It has been confirmed that the song was based on a strange dream that Gibbard had involving the two musicians. [citation needed]
- Marshall was referenced in R Stevens' web comic Diesel Sweeties from 9 April 2007. [15]
- Now-defunct Hampshire keyboard-botherers Black Nielson wrote a song called 'Love Song for Chan Marshall', which appeared on their album 'Current Sunlight', released by Truck Records.
- The name Chan Marshall was featured as title in a book of poems published in 2005 by Costa Rican poet Luis Chaves. The book, which won the III Fray Luis de León Poetry Prize in Spain, includes a two-sectioned poem entitled "Traducción libre de un tema inédito de Chan Marshall" (Free Translation of an Unreleased Song by Chan Marshall).
References
- Errico, Mike (December 2006). "Hottest Women of. . .Rock". Blender Magazine Online. Retrieved 2007-02-09.[1]
External links
- Chan Marshall Interview VBS.tv
- several articles in HARP
- Ink Blot Magazine interview (2000)
- Spin interview (February 2001)
- New York Magazine article (January 23, 2006 issue)
- BBC interview (June 2006)
- The (London) Times article (June 2006)
- Playlouder concert review (The Barbican, London, June 21st 2006)
- New York Times interview where Marshall discusses alcoholism, her influences, and touring.
- Spin interview (December 2006)
- Performance on Austin City Limits following The Raconteurs (December 2006)
- Cat Power photos from Vegoose and Austin City Limits music festivals
- Live Daily interview