Music

Chan Marshall has undergone a surprising transformation. More or less universally lauded since the broken blues of her 1995 debut, she’s always been an especial favourite with the sort of male fan who likes to ‘see the pain’ in a female  singer-songwriter’s eyes – y’know, the kind who find mental health intimidating, vulnerability a turn on, and would ideally be dating a laboratory rabbit.

Fighting off post-gig marriage proposals, Marshall once joked, is simply part of the job –  which is really quite alarming when you consider that, until recently, a Cat Power gig was likely to incorporate at least one partial breakdown. Crippled by stage fright, alcoholism and self-doubt, the singer would deliver stop-start sets punctuated by muttered apologies and tears. Once, deserted by her band, she got into the foetal position and refused to budge.

The release of 2006’s wonderfully catchy southern soul pean ‘The Greatest’ having coincided with both crisis and treatment, these days Marshall is a picture of confidence. She spent April’s All Tomorrow’s Parties strutting across the stage like a pop star and handing out what appeared to be  photocopies of her set-list as thank-yous
to adoring fans.

Unfortunately, this album of cover versions by the unimpeachable likes of Hank Williams, Billie Holiday and Joni Mitchell seems to confirm that, in getting happy in her personal life, Cat Power’s gotten lazy with her art. Her first covers album, released in 2000, was a masterpiece of reinterpretation in which she ignored the obvious hooks in favour of licking the wounds in tracks by the Rolling Stones and Lou Reed.

‘Jukebox’ is one long sloping soul jam which strips James Brown of his religious urgency and Bob Dylan of
his lyrical drive, while the opening take on Frank Sinatra’s ‘New York’ doesn’t so much swagger down the city’s sidewalks as glide ghostlike through its subways. Every bloody track ends on a fade.

As for Marshall’s vocals, her wispy, unfocussed emoting is beginning to sound interminably samey and curiously disengaged. Despite the efforts of her fantastic band the Dirty Delta Blues (including Dirty Three’s Jim White) to turn this into another arresting Cat Power classic, you’re left with the disconcerting feeling that Marshall herself has spent the entire record staring at the ceiling.