It seems almost every viable artist that sticks around long enough for listeners to care puts out an album of cover songs. Critics too often decry such releases as little more than an excuse for the musician in question to pad their pockets and acknowledge tunes they personally dig but shouldn’t have necessarily recorded. Bob Dylan heard all this and more when he put out his tenth record, Self Portrait, a mish-mash of country crooner type covers (mostly) that confused and even incensed his most ardent fans. In true Bob style, he rationalized away that album as nothing more than an attempted escape from whatever demons were still lurking around following his much publicized motorcycle crash, time in Nashville and then Woodstock, New York. Hell, Patti Smith, whose pioneering punk efforts have enabled acts like Cat Power to exist, just got around to releasing her cover album last year. What about the Ramones often overlooked Acid Eaters or nearly everything Joe Cocker’s ever sang. Don’t laugh, Joe’s Mad Dogs and Englishmen is balls-out amazing! What does all this appropriation of song mean to the casual listener? Didn’t Cat Power already putout a cover album sometime ago? Can the enigmatic and entertaining singer formerly known to some as Charlyn Marie Marshall pull it all off again on her latest release? Tune in next week…
Almost had you there, didn’t I? Once I get knee deep in cover comparisons involving Bob Dylan trivia my mind wanders as the parallels emerge like so many buckets of rain, buckets of tears, got all them buckets comin’ out of my ears…Cat Power loves Bob, too. Her take on “I Believe in You,” off his overtly religious Slow Train Coming vamps up the drums and bass in a richly pounded backing rhythm coupled with hard-stroked guitar, a slice of organ enhancement and her oh so cool vocals. The most surprising cut on Jukebox, however, has got to be the opening “Theme From New York, New York,” not because it’s never been taken on by lesser singers (it most certainly has), but because the way it is treated. Frank and Liza Minnelli always gave it that razzle dazzle, show stopping punch, complete with swinging orchestra that vaulted them through the familiar homage to The City That Never Sleeps but is always full of dreams. Cat Power downsizes the grandeur to a more manageable and haunting degree, exposing the myth of NYC to a truer portion of itself, one that is isolated, desperate but still sings.
This spooky but redemptive tone threads its way through most of the songs she’s chosen, best exemplified by a daring version of Billie Holiday’s “Don’t Explain,” highlighted by a simple piano refrain that punctuates the deeply heartbroken tone. Following in the footsteps of another great diva, Janis Joplin’s “A Woman Left Lonely” is given a different kind of meditative country delivery than the original, revealing how proper phrasing can really polish off a dusty treasure of a song and make it gleam again. From James Brown’s “Lost Someone” through Hank Williams’ “Ramblin’ (Wo)man” and finishing with Joni Mitchell’s “Blue,” Cat Power has melded jazz, country, folk and rock to create a challenging, moody album that may initially puzzle members of the dedicated indie/pop crowd. No matter, there’s enough musicality here to win them over and a certain innovation that should delight those familiar with the artists that made these songs great the first time around.
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