On 2000’s “The Covers Record,” Cat Power, the alias for singer-songwriter Chan Marshall, traded in the shambolic indie rock of her early career for a less-is-more aesthetic, playing nearly every song with a piano or guitar, unaccompanied.
Her austere arrangements provided the necessary room for her textured voice to manipulate the original versions into personal statements ““ the phrasing, the intonations, the keen sense to know when to delay words were all uniquely Marshall’s.
The songs were vehicles for her disquieting voice, always carrying the weight of her emotions. On her cover of the Rolling Stone’s ubiquitous “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” Marshall shed the classic fuzz-box riff, instead opting to fingerpick languorously through the chords, displaying a sense of world-weariness worlds apart from Mick Jagger’s libidinous juvenilia on the 1965 hit. She continued this process throughout the album with effective results; although I have been claiming that The Velvet Underground was my favorite band since the age 15, it embarrassingly took several listens to connect her cover of the 1970 “I Found A Reason” to Lou Reed’s original.
“Jukebox” is essentially a sequel to “The Covers Record,” yet it is more of a document of Marshall’s artistic growth over the past seven years. Whereas “The Covers Record” provided Marshall with a foundation of canonical songs to display her smoky vocals, it wasn’t until 2003’s “You Are Free” that she established herself as a mature, if still not entirely refined, songwriter. Marshall began penning some of her most evocative lyrics, finally able to consistently write songs worthy of her voice.
On “Jukebox,” with the first pounding bass-drum hit of opener “New York,” it becomes clear that the “Covers”-era Marshall is a thing of the past. The current incarnation of Marshall’s backing band, the Dirty Delta Blues, laces each song with jazzy, sultry arrangements, while wisely restraining its showmanship and allowing Marshall’s voice to breathe. The Dirty Delta Blues’ chops are matched by Marshall’s newfound confidence, evident both in her performance and choice of covers.
For a singer so often praised for the intimacy of her records, it seems absurd for her to cover the bombastic pomp of Frank Sinatra’s “Theme from New York, New York,” yet Marshall’s Wurlitzer-tinged, rhythmic interpretation is the most imaginative deviation from the original on “Jukebox.” Also, as in her cover of “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” Marshall reinvigorates life into the cliched, overplayed original. “New York” smoothly transitions into her cover of the Hank Williams standard “Ramblin’ Man” (here the pronoun altered, somewhat awkwardly, to “(Wo)man”). The slow-chugging original is used more as a loose template, as Marshall shuns certain verses and warps Williams’ phrasing while the Dirty Delta Blues provides an appropriately dusty and mysterious backing track.
The songs Marshall chooses to cover on “Jukebox” reflect her current influences as a musician, yet too frequently it feels as though she is simply paying lip-service to her heroes, rather than ingeniously recontextualizing them as she had done on “The Covers Record.” Although there are interesting gender-dynamics at play in the Marshall’s version of the chorus of country supergroup The Highwaymen’s “Silver Stallion” (originally about a horse, here given new implicit sexual connotation), the cover is little more than a convenient way to pay homage to the voices that have influenced her recent body of work.
The possibilities of Marshall covering soul legends George Jackson and James Brown, on “Aretha, Sing One for Me” and “Lost Someone,” are limitless, so it’s unfortunate that each song is given predictable and underwhelming performances. With its lone tambourine, unconventional vocals and a purely Southern aesthetic makes Jesse Mae Hemphill’s “Lord, Help the Poor and Needy” ripe for Marshall’s interpretation. While she retains the rough edges and muddy recording of the original, Marshall never establishes the song as her own, which is more or less the point of a cover.
A section of “Jukebox” dedicated to Bob Dylan idolatry accounts for some of the most interesting choices on the album. Marshall wears her Dylan worship on her sleeve, yet she conspicuously chooses a song from Bob’s generally maligned born-again Christian period of the late ’70s and ’80s. On her cover of “I Believe in You,” Marshall gives an adequate reading without giving a hint that the lyrics are about Jesus to listeners unfamiliar with the “Slow Train Coming” standout. “I Believe in You” clearly is intended as an homage to Dylan, but it is “Song to Bobby,” the sole Cat Power original on “Jukebox,” that provides the more moving tribute.
“Song to Bobby” is a rarity in the Cat Power catalogue for several reasons, straightforward, autobiographical lyrics and crystalline guitars chief among them, but the ersatz-Dylan cadence and vocal infliction that Marshall uses to convey the story of meeting her musical idol after years of fandom is perhaps the most unusual moment in her entire discography. It’s a nearly comical imitation, but the sincerity of Marshall’s lyrics makes “Song to Bobby” an oddly affecting highlight of “Jukebox.”
“Jukebox” concludes with covers of Janis Joplin’s “Woman Left Lonely” and Joni Mitchell’s “Blue,” both of which are solid, muted interpretations but do not necessarily highlight the strengths Marshall has developed over the years. Perhaps Marshall is at the point of her career where original compositions are necessary to convey her abilities as a singer and songwriter and to offer a glimpse into her personality. No longer is she able to hide behind the cloak of her musical heroes.
– Ross Rinehart
E-mail Rinehart at rrinehart@media.ucla.edu.