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Renowned singer-songwriter Cat Power has announced today’s arrival of her eagerly awaited new live album, Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert, available now via Domino Recording Company.
Recorded November 5, 2022, at London’s vaunted Royal Albert Hall, the 15-song collection sees the artist otherwise known as Chan Marshall paying tribute to Bob Dylan with a complete live reimagining of his legendary performance at the Manchester Free Trade Hall in May 1966. Long known as the “Royal Albert Hall Concert” due to a mislabeled bootleg, the original performance saw Dylan switching from acoustic to electric midway through the show, drawing the ire of folk purists and forever altering the course of rock ‘n’ roll. Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert both lovingly honors Dylan’s imprint on history and brings a stunning new vitality to many of his most revered songs, including “She Belongs to Me,” “Ballad of a Thin Man,” “Mr. Tambourine Man,” and “Like A Rolling Stone.”
“More than the work of any other songwriter,” says Chan Marshall, “Dylan’s songs have spoken to me, and inspired me since I first began hearing them at 5 years old.”
STREAM/DOWNLOAD CAT POWER SINGS DYLAN: THE 1966 ROYAL ALBERT HALL CONCERT
LISTEN TO “SHE BELONGS TO ME”
LISTEN TO “BALLAD OF A THIN MAN”
LISTEN TO “MR. TAMBOURINE MAN”
LISTEN TO “LIKE A ROLLING STONE”
Cat Power will commemorate today’s release of Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert with a performance, set for NBC’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Monday, November 13.
Marshall – who earlier this week heralded the new album with a trio of sold-out West Coast performances of Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert – will be performing at an already sold-out Carnegie Hall on February 14, 2024. There will also be a performance at a fundraiser for WYXR’s Raised By Sound Fest at Memphis, TN’s Crosstown Theater on December 2 which is sold out as well. These dates mark the show’s US debut following sold-out performances at London’s Royal Albert Hall in November 2022 and Sydney, Australia’s famed Sydney Opera House in May 2023. “Now we know how much applause it takes to lift the Albert Hall,” wrote The London Times of the debut performance, while The Telegraph summed it up as “pure celebration” in its 4-out-of-5-starred review. Sydney’s Time Out praised “the sheer transcendence” of this spring’s Opera House performance, hailing the experience as “spiked with a deep and enduring sense of timelessness, made all the more potent through Power’s pure vocals. We could’ve been anywhere, at any point in history, anywhere in the solar system…Magnificent.”
There are few voices more deeply embedded in the iconography and mythology of American indie rock than that of Chan Marshall. Under the musical nom de plume of Cat Power, Marshall has released music for nearly 25 years now and her prowess as a songwriter, a producer, and most notably – as a voice – has only grown more influential with time. Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert marks the latest in a series of albums that see Marshall reimagining classics from the American Songbook, rock ‘n’ roll history, and beyond, including 2000’s The Covers Record, 2008’s Jukebox, and 2022’s Covers, the latter of which was hailed by Pitchfork as “her widest ranging yet, illustrating her talent for radical reinvention.”
Now Cat Power recreates Dylan’s epochal 1966 concert – a 15-song set featuring classics like “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue,” “Mr. Tambourine Man,“ “Like A Rolling Stone” as well as several cuts from Blonde on Blonde including “Just Like A Woman” – with both heartfelt reverence and a deep understanding of the delicate nature of song interpretation. Like the original concert (and all of Dylan’s 1966 world tour), Marshall kept the first half of her set entirely acoustic, then went electric for the second half with the help of a full band including guitarist Arsun Sorrenti, bassist Erik Paparozzi, multi-instrumentalists Aaron Embry (harmonica, piano) and Jordan Summers (organ, Wurlitzer), and drummer Josh Adams. In her own rendition of that historic night, Marshall inhabits each song with equal parts conviction and grace and a palpable sense of protectiveness, ultimately transposing the anarchic tension of Dylan’s set with a warm and luminous joy.
“I had and still have such respect for the man who crafted so many songs that helped develop conscious thinking in millions of people, helped shape the way they see the world,” says Marshall. “So even though my hands were shaking so much I had to keep them in my pockets, I felt real dignity for myself. It felt like a real honor for me to stand there.”
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PRAISE FOR CAT POWER SINGS DYLAN: THE 1966 ROYAL ALBERT HALL CONCERT
“Part of what makes Ms. Marshall unique is how her many recorded cover songs are just as important as her own work...Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert
is an excellent showcase of her interpretive abilities...
a must for fans of her breathtaking ability to inhabit a song.”
– The Wall Street Journal
“Brilliant.”
– VOGUE
“If the crackle of original Dylan electrifies Marshall’s voice,
she finds her own phrasing, both robust and reverent.”
– Mojo (4 stars)
“Brave…gorgeous.”
– Uncut
“Cat Power could never replicate that combative energy, but she doesn’t have to.
While remaining faithful to the songs and the live arrangements,
she shines a light on Dylan’s genius and the beauty of the music
nearly 60 years after the original concert, while leaving her own mark.”
– Associated Press
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CAT POWER
CAT POWER SINGS DYLAN: THE 1966 ROYAL ALBERT HALL CONCERT
(Domino Recording Company)
Release Date: Friday, November 10, 2023
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