Cat Power – Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Cat Power – Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:28:43 minutes | 1,69 GB | Genre: Folk
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Domino Recording Co

In November 2022, Cat Power took the stage at London’s Royal Albert Hall and delivered a song-for-song recreation of one of the most fabled and transformative live sets of all time. Held at the Manchester Free Trade Hall in May 1966—but long known as the “Royal Albert Hall Concert” due to a mislabeled bootleg—the original performance saw Bob Dylan switching from acoustic to electric midway through the show, drawing ire from an audience of folk purists and forever altering the course of rock-and-roll. In her own rendition of that historic night, the artist otherwise known as Chan Marshall inhabited 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. Now captured on the live album Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert, Marshall’s spellbinding performance both lovingly honors her hero’s imprint on history and brings a stunning new vitality to many of his most revered songs.

Cat Power—Chan Marshall—wanted to mark the moment in 1966 that “informs everything … this precipice of time that changed music forever”: Bob Dylan’s “Royal Albert Hall Concert” (actually played at the Manchester Free Trade Hall), the one when he switched from acoustic to electric midway through—prompting an incensed folk purist to yell out “Judas!” Fifty-six years after that concert, Marshall delivered a sublime song-for-song re-creation of the set, at the actual Royal Albert Hall. “I’m not being Bob … I’m just recreating it, that’s all. But not making it mine,” she has said. Inevitably, though, the songs do become hers. It’s evident right away, from “She Belongs to Me” (and shortly after, “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue”), the influence Dylan has long had on Cat Power’s music. But with her husky voice, so like Nico’s now and far from Dylan’s youthful reediness, revealing traces of her Georgia upbringing (“She don’t look baaaaack”) and contrasting the clean acoustic guitar and shiny harmonica, she owns it.

“Desolation Row” is a twelve-and-a-half minute marvel. The guitar is not blindingly bright like Charlie McCoy’s flamenco flavor, but that works well with Marshall’s more serious/less jaunty air here. Without aping Dylan, she hits his inflections, putting exuberant emphasis on the ends of lines (“And the good Samaritan! He’s dressing!”). Her “Visions of Johanna” underscores the prettiness of the melody, while the way she sings the name “Jo-hanna” make it feel so much more exotic than it is. She gets playful with the familiar phrasing on the chorus of “Mr. Tambourine Man” and sings “Just Like a Woman” beautifully, offering a softer, less angular version of Dylan’s classic. At 50, she was twice the age of Dylan when he recorded the song for Blonde on Blonde, and you can hear—feel—the extra tread on her heart. When electrified “Tell Me Momma” kicks in like the Wizard of Oz Technicolor moment, it’s as thrilling as it’s supposed to be, the first word of the titular line bitingly crisp each time. “I Don’t Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)” plays up the soulful grooviness that always feels a little buried on Dylan’s live recording, while “Baby, Let Me Follow You Down” expertly captures his wild-eyed edginess. Marshall’s “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues” is more elegant, even with its raw edges, than Dylan’s young-man machismo. She does not recreate things down to the between-song patter but there is a moment, just before “Ballad of a Thin Man” (so slinky, so powerful), when someone yells out “Judas!”—and Marshall, serenely, responds, “Jesus.” “I wasn’t expecting the audience to recreate their part of the original show as well, but then I wanted to set the record straight—in a way, Dylan is a deity to all of us who write songs,” she has said. And, as it did in 1966, closer “Like a Rolling Stone” sounds like liberation; maybe even like Marshall knows some part of this is hers now. – Shelly Ridenour

Tracklist:
1-1. Cat Power – She Belongs To Me (Live at the Royal Albert Hall) (04:49)
1-2. Cat Power – Fourth Time Around (Live at the Royal Albert Hall) (04:45)
1-3. Cat Power – Visions Of Johanna (Live at the Royal Albert Hall) (09:29)
1-4. Cat Power – It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue (Live at the Royal Albert Hall) (05:10)
1-5. Cat Power – Desolation Row (Live at the Royal Albert Hall) (12:29)
1-6. Cat Power – Just Like A Woman (Live at the Royal Albert Hall) (05:55)
1-7. Cat Power – Mr. Tambourine Man (Live at the Royal Albert Hall) (06:29)
1-8. Cat Power – Tell Me, Momma (Live at the Royal Albert Hall) (04:46)
1-9. Cat Power – I Don’t Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met) (Live at the Royal Albert Hall) (05:33)
1-10. Cat Power – Baby, Let Me Follow You Down (Live at the Royal Albert Hall) (02:47)
1-11. Cat Power – Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues (Live at the Royal Albert Hall) (05:51)
1-12. Cat Power – Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat (Live at the Royal Albert Hall) (03:42)
1-13. Cat Power – One Too Many Mornings (Live at the Royal Albert Hall) (04:02)
1-14. Cat Power – Ballad Of A Thin Man (Live at the Royal Albert Hall) (06:11)
1-15. Cat Power – Like A Rolling Stone (Live at the Royal Albert Hall) (06:36)

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