To say
Cat Power's
Chan Marshall is a
Bob Dylan fan is something of an understatement. He's been one of her favorite artists since she was five, and she's reinterpreted his songs on
The Covers Record and
Jukebox (which also included "Song to Bobby," a song she wrote before meeting her hero for the first time). On
Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert, she takes her admiration to the next level by recreating one of his most charged performances. The day after he released
Blonde on Blonde,
Dylan played the Manchester Free Trade Hall (a mislabeled bootleg memorialized the show as taking place at the Royal Albert Hall) and the fury radiating from the folk purists in the crowd when he switched to roaring rock midway through the set only heightened the feeling that music history was in the making.
Marshall's body of work shares a similar wandering spirit in its travels from experimental rock to folk, soul, and electronic sounds, and she's performed more than a few dramatic shows of her own. However, her consummate performance on
Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert (which actually was recorded at the venue), balances confidence with reverence. The love she brings to these songs is palpable. Her voice caresses
Dylan's words and melodies, softening them on the hypnotic rendition of "Desolation Row" and sharpening their sting on heartrending versions of "Just Like a Woman" and "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue." The warmth and rasp of her delivery honors the conversations and journeys within "Fourth Time Around" and "Visions of Johanna," where she dances around the words' rhythms. Though the album's acoustic half combines
Marshall and
Dylan's strengths with particular magnetism, the electric set also offers plenty of highlights. She kicks it off with a fitting snarl on "Tell Me Momma," and her rollicking, impassioned performances on "Baby, Let Me Follow You Down" and "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat" echo her breakthrough album
The Greatest.
Marshall's devotion to the source material extends to her departures from it. Considering how much space "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "Like a Rolling Stone" have taken up in pop culture since the '60s, it's a small miracle that she gives new life to these songs with some subtle rhythmic and melodic tweaks. Her take on "Ballad of a Thin Man" is slinky, almost jazzy, but when an audience member recreates the moment when someone called
Dylan "Judas," her response of "Jesus" makes her loyalties clear. Though
Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert doesn't -- and couldn't -- have the same revelatory feel of
Dylan's original concert,
Marshall's wise, loving performances strengthen her reputation as one of her generation's most gifted interpreters. ~ Heather Phares
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