Chan Marshall, the artist known as Cat Power, has the rare distinction of sounding like a vintage soul singer while she lives in the present tense as an indie icon. Walking in contradictions, she’s a brilliant songwriter best known for her cover songs, which are sung with a healing voice. The performances expose her as being vulnerable and even broken. Let’s further examine some top Cat Power cover songs.
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Nervy Vibrance
Marshall has contemplated walking away from music, moving to another country, and living out her days anonymously. Her open struggle with nerves has caused her to walk off stage minutes into a set, and for most of her career, she’s stood alone in the spotlight, operating without a band or even a manager.
Born in Atlanta, she took her stage name from a trucker cap, moved to New York City, and became a part of the city’s experimental free jazz scene. She met Sonic Youth’s drummer, Steve Shelley, after opening for Liz Phair in 1993, leading to her first two studio albums.
Cat Power has released 11 studio albums to date, including three collections of cover songs, plus a live album recreating Bob Dylan’s 1966 bootleg concert of folk blasphemy. If the cover songs are an introduction, do yourself a favor and let the records keep playing. Cat Power is one of the most vibrant artists of her generation. Start spreading the news!
5. “Stay” from Wanderer (2018)
Most Cat Power covers are takes on classic songs. Recording old hits sounds like a safe bet, but recording a song already sung by Billie Holiday or Frank Sinatra is daunting. On Wanderer, Cat Power takes on a contemporary hit by Rihanna and Mikky Ekko. She told the New York Times she heard “Stay” playing on the radio in a former lover’s car. He said, “Oh, there’s my girl,” Marshall thought he was talking about her. Then she realized he was talking about Rihanna. Years later, she heard it in a taxi and cried the entire ride—Marshall sang “Stay” 16 times at a karaoke bar that night. Marshall’s former label, Matador, rejected Wanderer, at one point asking her to listen to Adele’s album, wanting a pop hit. Just like with the boyfriend, Marshall moved on. Domino released Wanderer in 2018.
4. “She Belongs to Me” from Cat Power Sings Bob Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert (2023).
In 1966, when Bob Dylan plugged in his electric guitar at Free Trade Hall in Manchester, England, an audience member shouted “Judas” in disapproval. Dylan’s famous bootleg concert venue was wrongly attributed to the Royal Albert Hall, and he defiantly played his way through the electric portion of the set amidst waves of heckling and jeering from the folkies. Cat Power recreated the concert, recording her version live at the Royal Albert Hall, and “She Belongs to Me” opens the acoustic part of the set. Her rendition is lonesome and beautiful, and whoever Dylan wrote it about—the hypnotist collector—Marshall sounds like the woman singing it back to him.
[RELATED: Cat Power Revives Bob Dylan’s Pivotal 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert]
3. “New York” from Jukebox (2008)
Liza Minnelli sang the theme song to Martin Scorsese’s film New York, New York, in 1977, but it became a hit the following year with Frank Sinatra’s performances at Radio City Music Hall. Cat Power’s interpretation features the Dirty Three drummer Jim White and guitarist Judah Bauer of the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. Keyboardist Gregg Foreman brings Memphis soul to Marshall’s smokey voice as she croons like a vagabond stepping through the heart of the sleepless city. Bassist Erik Paparazzi completes Marshall’s Dirty Delta Blues band, and the despondency in her voice adds a fresh take to the famous opening line. Cat Power’s “New York” replaces Sinatra’s glitz with the grit of the Lower East Side.
2. “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” from The Covers Record (2000)
“(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” is one of history’s most well-known guitar riffs. The title may be one of the most sung choruses ever, but Cat Power’s cover of the Stones’ classic contains neither the chorus nor the guitar riff. She turns Mick Jagger’s angry protest into a blues lament. It’s one thing to record a brilliant cover of a famous song; it’s something else entirely to turn a defining moment in rock’ n’ roll history into a confessional. Marshall’s voice is beautifully lazy and detached, turning Jagger’s bullhorn rage into the lonely hopelessness of a sparse and cold apartment.
1. “Sea of Love” from The Covers Record (2000)
Cat Power’s minimalist cover of Phil Phillips’s 1959 hit, “Sea of Love,” ends The Covers Record tenderly. She reportedly didn’t rehearse the songs and spent only an afternoon in the studio recording stripped-down versions. But Cat Power has a strange charm few possess. “Sea of Love” was Phillips’s only hit, and Marshall, using only her voice and an autoharp, is whimsically forlorn when she sings: Do you remember when we met? That’s the day I knew you were my pet.
Photo: Mario Sorrenti / Shore Fire Media PR
