"I've lived in Bars, and danced on tables/Hotels, trains, and ships that sail...."What do you do if you burn out AND fade away....and survive? Visualize with me.
Around 4 years ago, I was in a small, smoke filled club in Arizona, anxiously awaiting singer/songwriter Chan (Pronounced "Shawn") Marshall, who performs as Cat Power, to take the stage. A known erratic performer, her behavior had intensified for the worse as her alcohol abuse became greater. So, on this night, it was to no surprise that she was about 45 minutes late. She eventually stumbled out on stage, with her tiny band (Which at the time included Doug Easley of the Memphis Rhythm Band), and a guitar that only had two strings. Her band seemed a bit irritated by all of this, but they still struggled with an obviously drunk Marshall through 3 songs. Midway through the 4th song, "He War", one of the two strings on the guitar broke, and Easley attempted to take it from her. Possibly to re-string, possibly to save her from herself. Marshall angrily lashed out at Easley, and began crying hysterically, as her band awkwardly struggled to make music loud enough to cover up the sound of their leader falling apart.
The show ended abruptly, and as I was only one of about 5 remaining people left, I walked outside, where Marshall and a few choice members of her band sat around and smoked. I walked out in time to hear her say, "I wish I knew how to put on a better show" through tears. Ever so briefly, she caught the eye of me and my friends, smiled through smeared makeup, and nodded.
Marshall's decline was well documented through most of 2006, as she frequented rehab, found, and somehow lost, God on numerous occasions, and had a brush with death. A friend of mine even had a shirt that read, simply "Cat Power is Dead". Somehow, through all of this, she decided to get on the phone with Al Green, and ask for his blessing to record with his old band, and recorded 2006's, The Greatest with Teenie Hodges, and co. But, on the eve of it's release, Marshall suffered yet another alcohol induced breakdown, cancelled all touring behind the album, and locked herself away in a Florida rehab center.
In the meantime, The Greatest soaked up critical and commercial acclaim, as she became the first female solo act to win the Shortlist Music Prize, and the album became the best selling album in the Matador catalog. Almost as though success was sobering, Marshall resurfaced timidly in mid 2007, looking healthier, and performing better.
It's not this alone that makes her a unique talent. This made her better, but She had been in the industry since 1995, and it took her about 11 years to break down, which in some ways is an accomplishment. But she has it all. She's about as complete of a package now as you can get in an indie performer. She's beautiful (The opinion of this writer is that she is possibly the MOST beautiful....but I won't be biased.), but doesn't serve as an indie rock wet dream in the same way that (Rilo Kiley's) Jenny Lewis and Feist do. Not that I'm begrudging wet dreams of any variety, especially not those of a musical kind, and I like both Feist and Lewis, both are very talented...though Feist is now only tolerable for me in Broken Social Scene form, I'm not sure she's gotten all of the egg off of her face from her terrible Grammy showing a couple of years ago (Though, she can hardly be blamed, but I digress...). And Rilo Kiley is an indie staple, who makes good...no, GREAT music, and who deserves respect, yet in a band of beautiful child stars, Jenny Lewis towers above all, and is constantly shoved to the front of the stage. Chan Marshall kind of lost her chance, back when Feist, Lewis, and even Ani DiFranco were climbing to the top of female indie heartthrobdom, Marshall was drinking herself to death. Marshall's beauty, and I hate nothing more than discussing beauty for the sake of talent, is so understated, yet so striking that Chanel's head designer (the ONLY reason I didn't have to look this up is because I have friends involved in fashion. Don't make fun.) Karl Lagerfeld saw her smoking after a performance, and demanded that she become the spokesperson for their jewelry line. But enough about that.
When Bob Dylan sits down to write, stories unfold, and thoughts are provoked. When Bruce Springsteen sits down to write, wars between right and wrong are waged over the course of anywhere between 3 to 12 minutes, and the pure struggle of just existing purely in an impure world is set forth. When Pete Wentz sits down to write, hearts are up for grabs to be won and lost by the pure power of words alone, without exception.
When Chan Marshall sits down to write, all Hell breaks loose. I've never shared more than the aforementioned awkward nod and smile with Chan, so none of this is exclusive information, but you get the sense that every time she sits down to write, she tries to think of which demon to purge next. Women have used lyrics as confessionals for years, but never like this. I mean, maybe Joni Mitchell, but she's a Goddess, so she doesn't count. Not enough artists take personal responsibility with their lyrics....With Marshall, it's not about love, or heartbreak, or just misery alone. It's about how fucked up SHE is....you're just the poorly built house of sticks in the way of Chan's self created tornado. And it's in a really unapologetic way, not like the old soul singers that she grew up listening to, like Al Green or Otis Redding, who would sing about how they screwed up, but please....PLEASE....justcomebackthisonelasttimeandIpromise thingswillbebetter andifnotatleast wegotasongoutofitsoI'llbuyyousomethingpretty. There's a place for that, trust me, and as I've stated on this blog before...for my money, Redding is the greatest soul singer of all time. But there's a place for what he does, and when you've lived like Chan Marshall has, you don't have the time, and probably not the will to plead for anyone to accept anything from you, except for how much of a disaster you are. In "Love & Communication" (From The Greatest) She sings, "Hated to see you sad when I left/there's no good in that, but the good part was that I came out at all"...it's a very nonchalant lyrical way of saying, "well, I'm sorry that you're sad, but I'm screwed up, and you should have known that." I'm drawn to her writing, not as a spectacle, as some critics would suggest, but because writers like her are so rare anymore.
Musically, she's interesting. She's got this intense Bob Dylan fixation. Which, like most Dylan fixations, I don't understand. She's almost always performed with a 'Bob Dylan Fan Club' badge on. Dylan, of course, can't be bothered with anyone liking him these days, and she expressed some frustration when last year, despite her pleading, Dylan chose Kings Of Leon over her as his final supporting act for his Modern Times tour. Yet, she's not so much Dylan, no matter how much she wants to be or thinks she is. She comes out as a hybrid of Billie Holiday, Tina Turner, Janis Jopin, and Elvis Costello. At the core, she's a blues singer...I mean, she has to be. No great blues singer starts out as a blues singer. Life takes it's toll on all of them, and before you know it, they are singing all that they know, which is misery. My friend, Marissa, a talented singer in her own right insists that Marshall simply can't sing, a common gripe with Marshall as of late. Her voice, ravaged by years of intense smoking, isn't of a conventional beauty. She has limited range, and tends to struggle outside of it, and has a tendency to strain her vocals when she could pull herself back and sound better. But, that wouldn't be REAL. I am....ahem....quite the Mariah Carey fan. No bullshit. But, with all of her vocal acrobatics, it's hard for me to FEEL anything from them. I'd rather listen to Chan Marshall struggling to sing about struggling, than Mariah Carey breezing through singing about nothing. Tina Turner, Janis Joplin...I mean, they can't "sing" in the traditional defining way, but I'll take them as well. Chan became better when she came back in 2007, and could take her guard down, step from behind the guitar, and just sit at a microphone, free, and just sing. There's just something more honest about that.
Chan is 37 now, but you wouldn't tell by watching her. In interviews, her eyes constantly dart around, as though she's waiting for the next sky to fall, as she talks in her painfully intense southern drawl (Marshall hails from Georgia, and has the oddest transition from "singing" voice to "speaking" voice of any artist I've ever heard.), leaving out no details of her falling apart, and you can't help but wonder, how much longer? No one can live this hard, this fast, this long, and make it to 40....right? she released the covers album Jukebox last year, where she played with some of the Memphis band again, using the southern musicians to flesh out her sound, and garnered even more awards, and critical acclaim....even taking the risk of covering one of her own songs, from an earlier album. Her detractors whisper the all common phrase "sell out" when they see her in a Chanel ad, or on a cooking show, but they miss the point. They don't make women like Chan Marshall too often. The fact that she's lived through no doubt her version of hell, and didn't come out of it a total disaster, well....she's earned the right to sell out a little bit, right?
I've made 4 mix CDs for various people this summer, and they've all included "Lived In Bars", the opening track off of The Greatest, in which Marshall sings, "There's nothing like living in a bottle/nothing like ending it all for the world"....the song tears you down, with melancholy vocals, and droning horns. But, right when you think that hope is lost, Teenie Hodges and the boys from Memphis pick up the pace, and the song turns into a celebration. Of what? Of the fact that Marshall might not be plastered on the walls of indie rock romantics, like Jenny Lewis....she might not be revered by her peers as much as Ani Difranco, and she'll likely never get Grammy nods like Feist. But she's alive, and creating. And somehow, that's a bigger accomplishment than anything else.
What do you do if you burn out AND fade away?? You live to tell about it, and do it all over again.
(And Chan, if you somehow stumble upon RHT, listen. I will probably marry you. I mean, I would need some time to make sure that you won't have a meltdown and kill me in my sleep. I could take waking up to you attempting to kill me, that would be pretty hot. I mostly just want to live with you and write, and stare into each other's eyes. Or, whatever. Think about it, and shoot me an email.)
I. Loved. This.
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