Cat Power is the stage name of singer Chan (pronounced "Shawn") Marshall.
Cat Power's music has the distinctive quality of being very 'empty' or minimalist. Her albums have been described as sad or depressing, and her voice praised as cathartic.
After dropping out of high school, Chan Marshall moved to New York City, where she was asked to open for Liz Phair. On the tour, she met Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth and Tim Foljahn of Two Dollar Guitar. The two men agreed to help her record music.
Her first album, Dear Sir, was recorded on the same day as her second album, Myra Lee. The two were released a year apart, however, and on different record labels. Marshall signed to Matador Records in 1996.
In 2003 she released the album You are Free, which featured musical support from Eddie Vedder, who offered a scarcely recognizable touch of his vocals on two tracks, and Dave Grohl, who played drums on a number of tracks. The album marked a musical transition in Marshall's career, bringing more rock music taste to her previous melodrama. Among other things, she has cited Gus Van Sant's Good Will Hunting as an influence on this latest record.
The Cat Power live experience has garnered a degree of notoriety for its chaotic lack of polish or structure. Songs are frequently cut short for no apparent reason, or tail off into what sounds like an extended bout of guitar tuning. Some sections of the audiences have become restless at the apparent lack of direction, while others have been enchanted by the free-form nature and honesty of the performances.
The daughter of divorced parents, Chan (pronounced "Shawn") Marshall was born in Georgia.
Marshall will often stop playing in order to apologize for a self-perceived flaw in her performance, and often claims to be suffering from extreme stage fright.
Marshall is of Cherokee, Irish, Dutch, and Jewish descent.
In that film, Marshall herself played the professionaltrainer of the fighting cocks, and was just as laconic and offbeat an actor as she was a songwriter, and still nobody noticed.
I knew Marshall some in the last years of her life, and found her gentle and knowledgable and absolutley secure in her own persona, which makes her on the surface much different from that final creation of hers.
ChanMarshall was never a failure, in the sense that her songs are very good songs, carefully wrought.
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