Cat Power transforms covers
When a live performance turns into a psychological meltdown, it's newsworthy. But for Chan Marshall -- known in indie rock circles as Cat Power -- it's part of the package. Since her knockout debut in 1996, Marshall has earned dueling reputations -- the first as a remarkable singer and interpreter of songs and the second as one of the worst live performers of the last 10-plus years.
Known for bursting into tears, failing to complete songs once they're started, storming off stage or, as she did in 2006 at the Vic, ramble incoherently as the audience streamed out the exits, Marshall is such a predictable mess that she makes Amy Winehouse look like Edith Piaf.
Ticketholders, you have been warned: Marshall returns to the Vic Sunday.
For everyone else staying home, there is the music to warm up with. There, Marshall is everything she is not live: Intimate, mysterious, sensuous. The music from "The Greatest" (Matador), her last album and career breakthrough, tapped Memphis country soul veterans for arrangements that threaded songs of yearning and heartbreak with elegant nuance. It's the same setting used for "Jukebox" (Matador), her latest, a collection of mostly covers of little-known songs from Frank Sinatra, The Highwaymen, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Hank Williams, Nick Cave and others. While cover collections typically signal career stagnation or nostalgia, this collection -- like "The Covers Record" (Matador), Marshall's first volume of covers eight years ago -- comes off as wholly original. Songs sound freed from their original context by Marshall, who transforms them by slowing down their tempos, switching up the vocal phrasing and singing in a way that makes the songs sound rooted in her personality and that she has lived inside them for years.
A singer is only as good as her players. Like "The Greatest," "Jukebox" uses the musicians in the studio for their interpretive strengths. Drummer Jim White of The Dirty Three and guitarists Judah Bauer (Jon Spencer Blues Explosion) and Matt Sweeney (Chavez, Zwan) as well as soul legend session players Teenie Hodges on guitar and Spooner Oldham on organ temper her vocals with sophisticated textures and casual understatement.
While "The Covers Record" broke down the songs to the most minimal of stakes, "Jukebox" is tougher sounding, with the band scaling back to create a more lived-in feel. Sinatra's "New York" is almost unrecognizable from the original; whereas Sinatra sang with the brassy self-assurance of that famed city, here Marshall sings as if flirting with the possibilities it may, or may not, offer. Her hushed, indirect way of singing keeps the songs from becoming static. "Ramblin' Man" by Hank Williams is also transformed from its strict country western backdrop, becoming a smoky, lonely confessional. Likewise, "I Lost Someone," a signature shrieker by James Brown, turns from a horrible realization to a quiet moment of vulnerability.
Marshall's ability to transform, not just her own image, but the songs she chooses to sing, makes her a more natural protégé of Bob Dylan than any of his supposed successors (Conor Oberst and Ryan Adams included). Here, she not just has Dylan's natural but weird sense of phrasing and rhythm -- where specific words can make or break the emotions they carry -- but she does so without sounding like it's done for effect. There is an obligatory Dylan cover ("I Believe in You"), but the more direct link is from her own original, "Song to Bobby," which recounts her feelings leading up to and ultimately meeting Dylan for the first time last year. "Who could believe that you were calling," she sings. "I was in deceit." The lyrics state her case, but the tremble in her voice makes it true.