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| Chan Marshall felt that the songs Bob Dylan played at Manchester Free Trade Hall in 1966 could use a Cat Power-style update. |
Here's the scoop...
Recorded November 5, 2022 at London’s vaunted Royal Albert Hall, Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert sees 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 the recently released “She Belongs to Me” and “Ballad of a Thin Man,” both available everywhere now.
“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.”
The artist otherwise known as Chan Marshall will mark the new album’s arrival with three sold-out West Coast performances of Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert, set for West Hollywood, CA’s world-renowned Troubadour (November 6 and 7) and Los Angeles’s historic Palace Theatre (November 8). The upcoming dates mark the show’s first-ever U.S. performances following sold-out shows 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.”
Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert
She Belongs To Me
Fourth Time Around
Visions Of Johanna
It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue
Desolation Row
Just Like A Woman
Mr. Tambourine Man
Tell Me, Momma
I Don’t Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)
Baby, Let Me Follow You Down
Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues
Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat
One Too Many Mornings
Ballad Of A Thin Man
Like A Rolling Stone
Cat Power on tour:
Renowned singer-songwriter Cat Power has announced a wide-ranging headline tour that will see her celebrating her acclaimed new live album, Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert, with complete performances of the 15-song concert around the world. North American dates get underway February 12, 2024 at Red Bank, NJ’s historic Count Basie Theater and then continue through mid-March. Highlights include a sold-out performance at New York’s legendary Carnegie Hall (February 14) as well as newly announced shows at Nashville, TN’s Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s CMA Theater (February 25), Los Angeles, CA’s The Theatre at Ace Hotel (March 7), San Francisco, CA’s Herbst Theatre (March 8), and Portland, OR’s Revolution Hall (March 11). EU/UK dates follow in April, with stops set for prestigious venues in Sweden, Norway, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. North American tickets go on sale this Friday, November 17 at 10am (local). For complete details and ticket information, please see www.catpowermusic.com/#tour.
In case you missed it, Cat Power performed “Like A Rolling Stone” on NBC’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon which you can watch below.
