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| Birth Name(s) : Charlyn Marie Marshall |
Date of Birth: N/A |
| Status:
Single
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Partner:
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| Profession:
Singer-songwriter |
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Full Cat Power Biography
Cat Power is the stage name of American singer/songwriter Charlyn "Chan" Marshall (born Charlyn Marie Marshall on 21 January 1972). She is known for her minimalist style, sparse guitar and piano playing, and ethereal vocals.
The daughter of divorced parents, Chan (pronounced "Shawn") Marshall was born in Georgia. Marshall's father, Charlie, was a blues musician and itinerant pianist. Her childhood involved much upheaval, with Marshall living throughout the Southern United States (Greensboro, North Carolina; Bartlett, Tennessee; and Georgia and South Carolina), back and forth between parents and her grandmother. In interviews she has openly discussed her childhood and stated that the constant travelling prepared her for the touring life of a professional musician.
After dropping out of high school, she started performing under the name Cat Power while in Atlanta, backed by musicians Glen Thrasher, Marc Moore, and others. While in Atlanta, Marshall played her first live shows as support to her friends' bands, including Magic Bone and Opal Foxx Quartet. Due to her close relationships with the various people involved she has stated that her involvement in music at this time was primarily a social interest rather than an artistic one. She also stated in a 2007 interview for Soft Focus that the music itself was more experimental and that playing shows was often an opportunity to get drunk and for her friends to take drugs.
In 1994 she opened for Liz Phair in New York. In attendance were Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth and Tim Foljahn of Two Dollar Guitar, who encouraged her to record, and played on her first two albums, 1995's Dear Sir and 1996's Myra Lee, the latter taking its name from Marshall's mother. Both albums were recorded in New York on the same day in December 1994 and display a lack of conventional song structures possibly influenced by the experimental music that Thrasher had introduced her to. In 1996 she was signed to Matador Records, and released her third album, What Would the Community Think, which spawned a single and music video, "Nude as the News".
2004 saw the release of the critically polarizing DVD Speaking for Trees, which featured a single, nearly 2-hour static shot of Marshall performing in a woodland, and was accompanied by an audio CD containing the 18-minute song "Willie Deadwilder", featuring M. Ward on guitar. Also this year Marshall lent her vocals to the track "I've Been Thinking" from the Handsome Boy Modelling School album, White People. 2005 found Marshall out on the road again, touring the world and playing sold-out solo shows, including an Australian tour supporting Nick Cave and an appearance at Patti Smith's Meltdown festival. The shows largely consisted of material that would appear on her next album. In 2005 Marshall was featured on the song "Great Waves" from Dirty Three's album Cinder.
Since returning to the stage Marshall has contributed guest vocals to several albums. She duetted with model Karen Elson on an English cover of Serge Gainsbourg's "Je t'aime... moi non plus" for the tribute album Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited. She also sang lead vocal on the Ensemble track "Disown, Delete" and reworked "Revelations" with Yoko Ono for Ono's 2007 album Yes, I'm a Witch. She also performed guest vocals for Faithless and El-P.
Also in 2007, she became the first female ever to win the Shortlist Music Prize when The Greatest was voted album of the year in June. Earlier in the year she was nominated in the Best International Female category at the annual Brit Awards, alongside more mainstream artists like Christina Aguilera and Nelly Furtado. The Dirty Delta Blues band have recorded an album of covers called Jukebox which is expected to be released on January 22, 2008 on Matador Records.
Traditionally, Marshall’s live shows have been notorious for their chaotic and unpolished nature, with songs beginning and ending abruptly or blending into one another without clear transitions. Marshall has in the past spoken of her severe stage fright. She has been known to stop playing in order to apologize for a self-perceived flaw in her performance. She has even cut short a few of her performances without explanation, on some occasions under the influence of alcohol. Marshall has admitted to abusing alcohol in the past, however according to a recent BBC interview, she is now sober. These events have had a polarizing effect on Marshall’s fan base. Some have been alienated by what they perceive as Marshall’s lack of professionalism, while others have enjoyed what they see as a candid, honest, and spontaneous performance. Marshall is often very talkative during performances, usually cracking jokes.
Marshall is notable both as a songwriter and as an innovative interpreter of other artists' songs. Her cover versions often ignore the melodies and lyrical hooks of the originals, as evidenced by her renditions of Dylan's "Knocking on Heaven's Door" and Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction", or alter the mood of the song altogether, as with her exclusive performance of Oasis' "Wonderwall" at a John Peel BBC Radio One session on July 20th, 2000. The music is similarly stripped down, often to little more than an electric guitar with a clean tone and her voice.
Studio albums: Dear Sir | Myra Lee | What Would the Community Think | Moon Pix | The Covers Record | You Are Free | The Greatest | Jukebox |
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