Cat Power mesmerizes with a transcendent Dylan tribute
About 15 years ago, in a distinctive career that began about 15 years before that, Chan Marshall briefly met her idol. She’d just written “Song to Bobby” for a songwriter who knows a bit about idolatry: Bob Dylan.
“Oh my God, can you tell me who you were singing to?” Marshall sang, recalling the times she’d screamed herself hoarse while attending his concerts.
When an opportunity arose in 2022 to end a tour of cover songs at London’s Royal Albert Hall, the singer who answers to the stage name Cat Power had an idea. She and her band would re-create Dylan’s legendary 1966 concert — credited to the Royal Albert Hall but actually staged in Manchester — in its entirety.
That led to a live album and her current tour. Stopping at the Chevalier Theatre in Medford on Saturday, what could have been an exercise in indulgence proved to be something else: a heady inquiry into the art of rock ‘n’ roll.
Since her debut nearly 30 years ago, Cat Power has earned a reputation for both strength and fragility. On Saturday she mesmerized, completely. The show was a tribute to her “Bobby,” yes, but it was also a tribute to her womanhood and her commitment to her own voice.
Her first words echoed Dylan’s, but they might have been about herself: “She’s got everything she needs, she’s an artist/She don’t look back.” That set the tone.
Marshall’s voice is husky, dusky, forever searching. Though she identifies as an indie rocker, it’s a jazz instrument.
Wearing her hair cut in a pixie, stiletto heels, and a black tie and jacket over a bustier, she toyed with the androgyny of doing Dylan. The anguish written on her face made plain the cosmic weight of the lyrics as she interpreted them. At times she clutched the blade end of the tie, as if to center herself.
Just like the show this set was modeled on, the first half comprised all acoustic numbers. With Marshall standing at the microphone — a music stand by her side, an array of old-fashioned aluminum light stands behind her — guitarist Henry Munson faithfully re-created Dylan’s simple strumming. Multi-instrumentalist Aaron Embry sat behind a vintage electric piano, punctuating the hushed early songs — “Visions of Johanna,” “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” — with wheezy Dylan harmonica.
“Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,” Marshall sang, trading her Bobby’s oddly clipped delivery for something dreamier.
Midway through the show, the rest of her accompanists filed onstage.
Much has been made of the power of Dylan’s electric set on that 1966 tour, backed by the band that would soon become The Band. That was evident with this group, which didn’t so much mimic Dylan’s band as inhabit it.
When a young woman ran down the aisle to dance at the edge of the stage on “Baby, Let Me Follow You Down,” Marshall joked to the frowning ushers: “That’s my niece. She doesn’t get out much.”
“Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat” rumbled, an eccentric blues. “Ballad of a Thin Man,” with its acid indictment of the mysterious Mr. Jones, compounded the rumble.
The audience, who’d mostly sat glued to their seats, predictably sprang to life on the finale, the band’s version of the ageless classic “Like a Rolling Stone.”
How did it feel? It felt like a coronation.