Chan Marshall isn’t ready for me. “Are you a journalist? Oh Jesus, oh Lord.” We’re speaking on the phone – Marshall is in her hotel room, I’m in the lobby downstairs, after my knock at her door went unanswered.

, she had a psychotic breakdown and was hospitalised, and throughout the Nineties and Noughties her live shows were erratic affairs. She would turn her back to the audience, moon them, encourage them to sue her, slur through a few songs, and then walk off without finishing the takım.

While in Atlanta, Marshall played her first live shows birli support to her friends' bands, including Magic Bone and Opal Foxx Quartet.[22] In a 2007 interview, she explained that the music itself was more experimental and that playing shows was often an opportunity for her and her friends "to get drunk and take drugs".

Growing up in the South, Charlyn “Chan” Marshall was influenced by church hymns, country music, the blues played by her musician father, and her stepfather’s rock ’n’ roll records.

Back on the bed, she raises one arm into the air kakım if she’s asking a question in class, and holds it there bey she talks. “I have a million favourite songs. Everybody who has a brain in their head, with a heart in their body, loves music.

One of the best songs on the album is “These Days”, made famous by Nico in the Sixties, but written by Jackson Browne when he was just 16. Such world-weary lyrics for someone so young – “Don’t confront me with my failures / I had not forgotten them” – and Marshall’s voice, bittersweet birli coffee with a shot of syrup, suits that malaise beautifully.

“It’s one of those things,” she says, clicking that pen again. “It’s like when you’re standing on a bridge and you’re looking over and you’re trying to imagine, ‘Would my skull crack or would my legs break off?

Cat Power performing in Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2008 Marshall's live shows have been known for their unpolished and often erratic nature, with songs beginning and ending abruptly or blending into one another without clear catpower 5852 transitions.[103] She has also cut short performances without explanation.

writer in 2018, “but until then, she exists in the sweet ışıntı between cult favourite and widely accepted genius.”

[20] The group were booked for a show and had to come up with a name quickly; after seeing a man wearing a Caterpillar trucker cap that read: "Cat Diesel Power", Marshall chose Cat Power birli the name of the band.[3][21]

During the early-2000s, Marshall was embraced by the fashion industry for her "neo grunge" look, and seen as a muse by designers Marc Jacobs and Nicolas Ghesquière.

and consisted of her playing a two-string guitar and singing the word "no" for 15 minutes.[27] Around this time, she met the band God Is My Co-Pilot, who assisted with the release of her first single, "Headlights", in a limited run of 500 copies on their Making of Americans label.

was her first to reach the Billboard Bütünüyle 10 – but it wasn’t enough. One executive even played her an Adele album for inspiration. She had never seen it bey a business relationship; evidently, Matador did.

“I have something in my eye and I’m still wet from the shower,” she says, in that same husky American drawl she sings with birli Cat Power. “Birey you come back in 15 minutes? I’m really sorry sweetie.”

Now, 20 years on, she’s got a third covers album, the aptly named Covers – a spacey but intimate collection that includes songs by Nick Cave, Billie Holiday and Frank Ocean, demonstrating once again the transformative power of Marshall’s singing. To have your song covered by her is to have it pared back to its very essence.