This area is never far from the mind of Chan (pronounced “Shawn”) Marshall.
“To me it just feels like a safe home. It feels like I have a huge family,” says the Atlanta native and singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist, who performs under the name Cat Power. “I just reconnected with my father and stepfather, which I can tell you — it only makes that house feel bigger and warmer, because they live in the Atlanta area.”
After a childhood that featured near-constant moves around the Deep South, Marshall returned to the city and began playing music in her teen years. Her first bandmates asked her to name them ahead of their debut show at the Clermont Lounge; she spotted someone wearing a Caterpillar hat and Cat Power was born (she began to use the name for her own project after the group disbanded).
So it’s fitting that Marshall begins her once-delayed 2022 tour at the Variety Playhouse on April 13. She’s supporting “Covers,” her third covers album (eleventh total) which was released by Domino Records in January. “Covers” is consistently good, highlighting Marshall’s impressive ability to transform songs such that they become re-imaginings, often bearing minimal resemblance to the originals (other than the words themselves).
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
Two album tracks that stand out in particular are songs by Iggy Pop and Nick Cave (“Endless Sea” and “I Had a Dream, Joe,” respectively) which have been important to Marshall since her teenage years. “When I discovered Nick Cave and Iggy Pop, I’d already heard The Stooges,” she says, adding that she first heard “Endless Sea” at the end of the Australian film “Dogs in Space.”
Marshall hadn’t planned on covering either song, but the way she and her band — guitarist Adeline Jasso, drummer Alianna Kalaba and multi-instrumentalist Erik Papparazzi — began to record the album led to some spur-of-the-moment decisions. Kalaba and Jasso hadn’t recorded with Marshall before, other than for some radio sessions, which dictated her approach.
“I wanted them to just get right to it,” she says. “When I knew that we were ready to go, I told [engineer] Rob Schnapf to go ahead and start rolling, and I just started composing.”
“Once it sounded like a song I jumped in the vocal booth, not having any idea of what song I was gonna sing,” Marshall continues. “This is the way I recorded the first four songs, each song was done in the same way. I’d jump out of the vocal booth, compose really quickly, jump back in and figure it out.” The bluesy style on “Endless Sea” and piano-led, slowed down tempo on “I Had a Dream, Joe” both benefit from Marshall’s dynamic vocal performances, which metamorphose each version as she sings the classic lyrics over newly minted instrumental parts.
The Iggy Pop and Nick Cave covers were two of those first four, alongside Bob Seger’s “Against the Wind” and The Rolling Stones’ “You Got the Silver.” The instant Cave choice surprised Marshall: “Never in a thousand lifetimes would I have ever thought to do ‘I Had a Dream, Joe,’ ever.” She earmarked the Stones cover for a bonus 7″ single, noting, “I want it to be more like a piece of gold or piece of silver that you have to search for.”
Another “Covers” highlight is “Pa Pa Power,” written and first recorded by Dead Man’s Bones in 2009 and performed live by Cat Power well before the recording of this album. Marshall was surprised and impressed by Ryan Gosling’s singing in the film “Lars and the Real Girl,” later discovering he’d been a Mickey Mouse Club cast member in his youth. She heard his band Dead Man’s Bones (who were joined in the studio by the Silverlake Conservatory Children’s Choir), drawn particularly to an anthem sung by Zach Shields, the other half of the group. “I felt like it needed to be chanted on the street,” she says, especially as part of Occupy movement protests. “I started playing it all the time, all the way around the world.” That included in China, where she was reminded constantly to have “no politics” in interviews or performances but felt compelled to play “Pa Pa Power” anyway. The Cat Power recording of the song is more intense than the original, with the soaring solo vocal and minimal instrumentation contrasting with the children’s choir and layers on the Dead Man’s Bones rendition.
Credit: Rich Addicks/Staff
Credit: Rich Addicks/Staff
Marshall answers quickly both for her band and for herself when asked which songs from the album they haven’t played live yet that they’re most looking forward to trying out. “The band is really hyped for ‘I Had a Dream, Joe’… For me I think it’s ‘Against the Wind.’” She highlights the lyrical connections to her split from longtime record label Matador several years ago and her childhood on the move. “The lyrics, for me—I didn’t realize they hit me like they did when I was singing them, because I’d never sung that before, you know?”
The next Cat Power record will almost certainly return to the original songs realm, and Marshall has been writing tunes of a particularly personal nature following her grandmother’s sudden death just before the start of the pandemic. “She was the love of my life, besides my son. She was my best friend my whole life,” Marshall relates. “This whole pandemic, not having her to talk to was really, really difficult. When I would get some time I wrote about eight songs — when my son was playing. They’re just me communicating to her.”
The Georgian misses much of Atlanta, past and present, in addition to her grandmother. “I miss James Brown playing every summer on Auburn Avenue,” she muses. “I miss Piedmont Park, funk music, the roller skating. I miss riding my bike everywhere. So when I’m around Atlanta, every street there’s a memory that I love. Every avenue there’s an apartment that I was in.” She does catch up with family and old friends whenever she’s in town.
“Everything just comes back to Atlanta for me, and it always will, I think,” concludes Marshall.
CONCERT PREVIEW
Cat Power
8 p.m. April 13. $20-$79. Variety Playhouse, 1099 Euclid Ave. NE, Atlanta. 404-876-5566, variety-playhouse.com.
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