This girl has got it…

Chan Marshall—whose moniker Cat Power you may be more familiar with—is a musician with an immense amount of talent.  (It makes me wish that I could be so talented in something, anything…)

The New York Times hailed her 2006 album, The Greatest, as “the best work of her life.”  Recorded in Memphis, Tennessee, with several southern soul greats, it is a fantastic album and definitely marks a turning point in her career and personal life (sobering up).  Still, I would be more inclined to review it as the beginning of the best work of her life.

Last year Cat Power released Jukebox with her soul band, The Dirty Delta Blues.  It is a covers album, but don’t be fooled by that fact.  Reworking classics by Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Frank Sinatra, Janis Joplin, Hank Williams and Waylon Jennings among others, Cat Power does a phenomenal job of making each track very much her own.  I find it to be her most soulful work to date.

“Silver Stallion” has become one of my personal favorites on the album.  Check out the original by the Highwaymen:

And Cat Power's rendition:

So, when I read that Cat Power recently released an EP, Dark End of the Street, featuring six tracks intended for but not included on the Jukebox album, I got pretty excited and promptly added the album to the top of my Christmas list.  I hope that that it proves to be another impressive display of things to come from Chan.