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'Jukebox' Filled With Seasoned Performances

By CURTIS ROSS, The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 24, 2008

Chan "Cat Power" Marshall reveals as much, maybe more, about herself on her remakes as on her original material.

On 2000's "The Covers Record," Marshall reworked songs as familiar as The Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" and presented them as de facto originals.

Her style was sparse, her vocals nakedly emotional, as if she were singing to herself in a dark room.

Subsequent albums "You Are Free" (2003) and "The Greatest" (2006) featured bigger production, more structure and, particularly on "The Greatest," a new control and confidence in Marshall's vocals.

"Jukebox," then, feels like the capper to this phase of Marshall's career, the shift from stage-frightened waif to seasoned performer.

Perhaps to emphasize this, Marshall kicks off "Jukebox" with "New York, New York." Not surprisingly, Marshall doesn't belt the tune a la Sinatra or Minnelli. She replaces the swinging brass with a swampy electric piano and substitutes determination and yearning for the usual bluster.

Hank Williams' "Ramblin' Man" (retitled "Ramblin' (Wo)man") follows immediately, with an arrangement cut from the same cloth as "New York." Marshall's recorded the song before on "The eMusic Session EP," on which she gave herself over to Williams' sense of helpless wandering. This time, Marshall injects a sense of conscious intent - as Lyle Lovett might put it, she's leaving because she really wants to.

There are no Rolling Stones covers this time, but plenty of Stonesy guitars in "Aretha, Sing One for Me" and "I Believe in You." Marshall strips down James Brown's "Lost Someone" for a subtle but powerful reading.

By the time the album closes with Joni Mitchell's "Blue" turned into gently smoldering gospel-soul, Marshall has firmly established herself as perhaps the worthiest interpreter of her generation.

Download this: "Lost Someone"

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