A Short History of Cat Power
Chan Marshall was born Charlyn Marie Marshall on January 21st 1972 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. The daughter of divorced parents, Marshall's early childhood was characterized by upheaval. Travelling throughout the Southern United States, Marshall at various times lived in Georgia, South Carolina, Bartlett, Tennessee and Greensboro, North Carolina.
After dropping out of high school at 16, Marshall worked in a pizzeria in Atlanta, Georgia to pay her way. Having made the acquaintance of several Atlanta musicians, including Glen Thrasher (drums) and the late Mark Moore (guitar), she formed Cat Power while living in Atlanta. It is unclear wither they played publicly. With Thrasher she moved to the Lower East Side of New York City in 1990. During this time she worked various dead end jobs. Also during this time, Thrasher introduced her to New York's experimental music scene. She cites a concert by the free-jazz composer Anthony Braxton as giving her the confidence to perform in front of people as "there were no judgements." After playing a few shows, which Marshall describes as "experimental", she became friends with the New York underground jazz/punk band God Is My Co-Pilot, a friendship which led to the limited edition single
Headlights (b/w "Darling Said Sir") in 1994.
The same year she played an unbilled support slot to Liz Phair in New York City. In attendance were Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth and Tim Folijhan of Two Dollar Guitar. They became her backing band and recorded two albums worth of material on the same day in late 1994. Half of the recordings were released in the following year on the obscure Italian record label Runt Records (it has since been brought back into print by Plain Records). The second half was released by Shelley on his own Smells Like Records label in 1996. She has since described the recording of her first two album as one of the most uncomfortable moments of her life and has dismissed both albums in interviews. Shelley brought her to the attention of Chris Lombardi of Matador Records (Guided By Voices, Pavement, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion) resulting in her signing.
Her Matador debut
What Would the Community Think was recorded in early 1996 at Easley McCain Recording studios in Memphis, Tennessee. The album gave her her first music video when "Nude As the News" was released as a single. In late '96 she went on tour as a support act with the band Guv'nor. Following the tour Marshall decided she was through with music, moving to Portland, Oregon to work as a baby sitter. According to interviews she couldn’t take the cold and rainy climate so she moved into a farmhouse in Prosperity, South Carolina with her boyfriend at the time Bill Callahan (Smog) . Throughout 1997 she simply lived, having no involvement in the music business or song writing, the plan being to not go back to music. However, during a sleepless night resulting from a nightmare she wrote several songs, the bulk of what would become her next record.
Following the nightmare and sudden flow of songs, she used an advance from Matador to fly to Melbourne, Australia where she came into contact with Jim White (Drums) and Mick Turner (Guitar) of the Dirty Three. They recorded her fourth album
Moon Pix in 11 days at Sing Sing Studios in Melbourne during January '98. Following the recording, Marshall toured to support the album with Jim White and her old friend from Atlanta Mark Moore. The release of
Moon Pix set in motion a relentless touring schedule that would not stop for several years, a schedule Marshall welcomed as an alternative to what her life would otherwise be, namely living in a small apartment in New York.
In 1999, Marshall played a series of shows in North America, providing musical accompaniment to the silent movie
The Passion of Joan of Arc. The shows consisted of Marshall playing solo renditions of her own songs and several unrecorded cover versions. She was encouraged to play the shows by the late Robert "Benjamin" D ickerson of the legendary Atlanta band Smoke. He was sadly to pass away on January 29th, 1999. In 2000, despite having a full album of original material already written, Matador released her fifth album
The Covers Record. It contained cover versions songs by artists as diverse as the Rolling Stones ("Satisfaction"), Michael Hurley ("Sweedeedee") and Nina Simone ("Wild Is the Wind"). Many of the covers that didn’t make it onto the album were recorded for a John Peel session the same year.
It was not until 2003 that Marshall released another record. She had since split up with Bill Callahan and their relationship was the subject of the beautiful yet painful "Good Woman" from
You Are Free, recorded with Adam Kasper (Foo Fighters, Pearl Jam) in an engineers capacity. The record featured Dave Grohl (Nirvana, Foo Fighters) drumming on several tracks, Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam) providing unrecognisable guest vocals on two tracks, Smoosh providing backing vocals and Warren Ellis (Dirty Three) providing violin. Grohl's and Vedder's contributions were left uncredited at the request of Marshall, not wanting to draw attention to her record. However, according to Marshall's statements in interviews, the story was leaked to the press by her label. 2004 was a quiet year in terms of releases, save for the DVD/CD set
Speaking for Trees, a 2 hour film filmed using one camera of Marshall performing solo in a wood. It featured several unreleased originals and its received mixed reviews upon its release.
2005 had Marshall's never ending touring continue. She was now playing solo with just piano and guitar and performing shows of mostly unheard originals, some of which would be released the following year on her seventh album. Following an Australian tour supporting Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds she played at Patti Smith's
Meltdown at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall. Her seventh album
The Greatest was recorded the same year at Ardent Studios in Memphis, Tennessee with members of Al Green's band including legendary songwriter/guitar "Teenie" Hodges and his brother Mabon Hodges of Hi-Rhythm.
The album was released in January 2006 but a tour of North America and shows in London and Paris were cancelled due to undisclosed health reasons. She returned to live performance in April with the Memphis Rhythm Band and
revealed in interviews the reasons behind the tour cancellation. Since her return to live performance, Marshall has been involved in several projects, including an upcoming ad campaign for Chanel and an art installation by Doug Aitken called
Sleepwalkers. She has also written a full albums worth of material, tentatively titled
Sun, and is planning a second covers record for sometime in 2007.