Cat Power: "Talking about Bob Dylan creates a vortex you can climb into"

Rock as we know it today was most likely born the moment Bob Dylan and his musicians plugged in their amps on stage. A record that depicts one of these moments is the album "The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert", which contains the entire concert Dylan (with The Band as his backing band) played that year at Manchester's Free Trade Hall. As is well known, the incorrect title has prevailed because the early bootleg copies of the show listed the Royal Albert Hall as its venue.

Chan Marshall is better known in music circles as Cat Power. Cat is an artist who is fond of playing cover songs and several of her studio releases are covers-only albums. In addition to covers though, she also loves the music of Dylan. A few years ago, Cat Power recorded live and released an album in which she plays all the songs from "The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert" in the same way and in the same order that Dylan did. This means, first an acoustic set and then, after plugging in, an electric set. The project was of great success and recognition and led her to a couple of tours where she played the whole album.

After 11 long years Greece (or rather, Athens) now has the opportunity to see Cat Power again. On this occasion, we took the opportunity that was given to us to ask her some questions and get some answers. Cat is currently in Japan so the time difference was a bit unusual, but in the end our conversation was completed with a lot of information outside of music that Cat gave us ...voluntarily. Let's see what she told us in anticipation of her visit in less than two weeks.

The format has kept the flow of the phone conversation.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

Hi there Cat. Can you hear me?

Yes! You can call me Chan. Nice to meet you.

Chan, OK! Nice to meet you too! My name is Pantelis, it's a bit difficult, it has a lot of syllables.

It's cool. What does your name mean?

It comes from a Saint who was a doctor and it means "he who graces everyone" Yeah, not he who graces, but he who like helps everyone.

Wow, "Doctor Jesus"! Amazing. Beautiful.

Thank you! (laughs) But I have it shorted little bit. Because you know the normal name is Panteleimon, which is a bit awkward.

Hmm, that's cool.

So, I write for a Greek music website. We are called Rocking.gr and I would like to thank you very much for the opportunity for this conversation.

Of course! Thank you so much.

You're visiting us in the end of May, and I've got some questions…

I love Greece. I'm so excited. I haven't performed in Athens in a very long time, and it means so much to me to return to sing to you all…

You will be singing the best live record of all time, and maybe the most important…

(laughs) Yeah, maybe you could be right. I definitely would be there doing that, but you could be right about being the greatest. James Brown’s "Live at Apollo" is pretty amazing too.

I can hear that! But, this this record is maybe the record that gave birth to rock music as we know it.

Absolutely! Thank you, Bob! Thanks to Bob Dylan, I have a job.

Do you mean your thanks to Bob Dylan as an influence?

Well, you know, him being the teller of the tale and roaming around with this guitar and then going electric and then creating basically what you just said: Rock music as we know it today. And then punk rock… I feel like he created my job, and a lot of people’s jobs. And if he hadn't, I’m not sure, it’s escaping me now...

If he hadn't, everything would be different.

I believe so. I believe Jimi Hendrix may not have sung "I'm stoned free to do what I please"…

Thanks to Bob Dylan, I have a job

It was a moment of history, for sure.

Yeah! Him denying the rhetoric that he should be that folk protest singer... they were on tour for a long time and they got booed every night. And he didn't give up. Today I'm not sure it would go down the same way. I'm not sure bravery would be in the cards for say, Taylor Swift in that level. I think with today’s consciousness, the fact of being more aware, that the world has all eyes on everything and everybody knows everything now…

It would have been much more difficult.

I'm not sure that anyone would do the concert, you see…

Somebody maybe would do it.

Yeah…

Would you like to tell me how you first became familiar with Bob Dylan's music? Was it through your family, or did you find him yourself?

Yeah, through my family. When I met my mother and father, when I was 5 and all of the lifestyle that they came with the music and people and environment that they came with, that's how I discovered Bob. Through learning my parents, I learned all the music that they were learning. And I learned the conversations around the music and the behaviors around the music. I was very curious about Bob. Rather than just singing along, I was curious about him as an entity.

His lyrics also helped, I think. It was not only the music.

Well, you know. Yeah, the conversation in the room whenever Bob would come on with was always… The adults would talk weird, they would say... They would do the same thing that this concert was about…. "He was cool as a protest, but then he…", "No, but his best stuff is later...", "Yeah, but he can't sing…" People always have held such contempt for Bob as like the stamp, like the Scarlet letter of him going electric, and leaving protest music. Where people say that Cat Power was a train wreck, because I've collapsed on stage in the 90s .Because nobody knew that there was a guy with a semi-automatic handgun backstage and I ran to the stage and he was supposed to… They were supposed to call the cops at this fucking famous show and they never did, and he was coming towards the stage, drawing his gun… And, yeah, I left the stage and all… But there's a lot that people will always talk about.

And judge maybe...

I mean it's all they have. Cause they're not doing it. They're not singing at the protest. So, they have to talk about it, because people are not awake. And I think now people are so awake that they talk about everything. And fear is in the room again everything's open, wide open. And there's so much fear, but once you get past the fear, because fear is a feeling, once you get past the fear, then you can address what's going on. Then you can breathe and then you can be strong. Then you can make up your own mind. Do I want to sing at the protest? You know what I'm saying? Because I think so many people just live in fear like they were doing in that time, in the 60s. And I think when he broke from the protest, he possibly realized there's no audience in protest. People aren't going to vote, people aren't coming to the protest. People are going to get turned on and get drunk and get high and have sex and be cool and look good. And he brought his mind and his poetry to the masses and it turned people on. And the protests became a part of people's hearts, you know? And they had to think just like they have to think now. Well, fuck, I know everything now. I see what's going on in the world now because everything's transparent. Fuck! Now I'm responsible because I'm awake. Yeah, fuck yeah!

Fear is a feeling. Removing fear is very tricky and difficult. Once you get past it, then you can address what's going on

Are they awake? I'm not so sure…

They have to be!

They have to be, but…

Because now they see they can deny like they historically always do. They can drive their Porsche down to the coffee shop and get a double iced mocha latte Frappuccino with soya milka and sweet potato sugar. They can go to Pilates for hours a day. They can go on TikTok and make cooking videos of how to do gluten free pasta… They can fill up their day, but when they lay their head down in bed, it's in their brain and clenching their teeth "Who am I? What am I doing? How am I helping this fucking planet?" They know when they wake up in the morning. They know when their child is getting bullied for being gay or of color. They know. They're awake. Everyone's awake right now...

They just don't admit it.

Whether they admit or not isn't my problem… or it isn't my fault! But it's the world's problem. The sooner that they admit it and make a choice… Fuck! Who am I? Who are these people that run these governments that make these laws that sit in their comfortable air conditioning with their filtered water? They know what's going on…

Definitely.

Everyone's awake. The great consciousness has arrived and hopefully through us or yourself… hopefully through people finding calm energy, grounded energy to be graceful and healthy and generous and being gentle with their words. I know it's hard being kind to the earth and the world around them, hopefully they can make the right choices to influence their neighbors and their coworkers and their children and their cab driver. You know what I mean?

Let's hope they can make the right decisions.

Well, we have to have faith. We can't just have hope up against the wall and fear in our feet. We have to have faith when we dance, show them how to dance. We have to have faith as we move towards these people that don't have hope. Hope it's almost like a feeling. Faith is an action and hope is just clenching your teeth. Like praying. Faith is believing and knowing.

Hope is has fear inside it, while faith, I think, does not.

Well, because faith is an action. A verb. Hope is like a prayer. You know you can pray all day. But if you have faith then you are actually moving in the divine spirit of joy and love. You're dancing. You're creating art, you're speaking. You're writing that book. You're telling the tale. You're creating this beautiful masterpiece. You're talking to your neighbor kindly about facts. Removing fear is very tricky and difficult. Having hope quietly is like sitting in silence playing. Having faith is knowing that you can survive and succeed. Because that is the human mission: we are here on Earth to survive. That is our human nature. And we have to have faith. You can pray and have hope all day long, but until you have faith then you know that you’re in the rightful side of humanity, which is love and kindness. I know, I believe, I have faith. I've seen human beings be kind. Yes, we have seen horror, but we've also seen the old lady in the street drop her bag and she doesn't know she's dropped her bag. How many people have you seen go and help with her bag. We know there is goodness! We can't forget what we know. They will train us to be hopeless. They will train us to remove our faith and instill fear. We have to remember that fear is a feeling. We have to put our feet on the grass, inhale, look at the sun, and remember we're in the fucking universe. We're like spiraling on some fucking planet in the middle of the fucking universe. God knows where we fucking are in the scheme of things, but here we are. We have resilience.

Hope is almost like a feeling, it’s like praying. Faith is an action. Faith is believing and knowing

We are both very important and also not important at all.

Yeah. In the end, it doesn't really matter. In Buddhism you just find the smile from your feet, from the grass. And be powerful, knowing that you can breathe oxygen and you have sun on your face. Let that be your fucking armor to face the day with a smile and kindness. And be gentle to yourself. Drink water. You know what I'm saying? Yes, there are people suffering. And if you are not suffering and you know what's going on in the earth and the world, know it! And have faith that you can be the difference. Your neighbors see you dancing when you're on the sidewalk. What do you have to be thankful for? Well, my fucking life that I can fucking smile and grab you and hug you and say "How can I help you?", What's going on with your day?, "You need help?", How can I be of use to this world?", "How can we help each other?" "What's your name?" You know what I'm saying? We're not so different…

No, we're not in the end.

They've taken our skin off and pulled our membranes apart. It's all the same fit.

We're the same inside, that's for sure.

We are the same outside. We have how many pores, how many eyelashes? You know how many? We're the same inside and outside. It all may look slightly different, but it all looks the same. A tree breathes like our lungs breathe, you know? You know what I mean?

Can I take you back to something more musical?

Yeah! Take me back to Bob! I’m sorry.

Which song did you find the most difficult to sing from the record?

Funnily enough, I'd say "Mr. Tambourine Man", because it reminded me of being truly, purely innocent.

So, would you say that it was not technically difficult, but it was sentimentally difficult?

Well, I think that that for me those go hand in hand because I am an instrument. Just as the bass is the instrument and the bass player plays it, my voice is an instrument and I the singer sing it. And with my consciousness, I feel it. And I think it. So, that was probably the most difficult one, because as a woman, a single parent of a child and having lived my life and having been the child, hearing that song my whole life, as adults we've heard that song in so many different random situations. In an elevator, in a restaurant …

…on the radio, almost everywhere.

Through all of our stages of our life. If we had a movie of a tape that played when our eyes were open or even dreaming when it was playing in some FM radio in our dream in a car down in another dimension. If we had a moment in time for every time that song has played in our sub and consciousness. What feeling would it bring to every bit of our soul, of our eyes, what we witness and that sort of echoing chamber of all of Bob's faith that he had wrapped up in that song, that sort of magical snowy electric gift of a song of our innocence and our beliefs. That for me was the hardest one because of the purity of that dialogue of needing change so desperately. And just having maybe a dime or a nickel left in your pocket and knowing the world is fucked. But maybe I'll just place a bet on this random raggedy ass clown of a soul that happens to be my own reflection. Maybe I'll place the bet on myself, and that maybe I can choose to help out. That's how I interpret that song through singing it every night.

Τhe hardest song for me was "Mr. Tambourine Man" because of the purity of that dialogue of needing change so desperately

How have the shows where you play that Dylan record been received by the audience?

…

Hello! I lost you! Can you hear me?

I thought you said hello, I love you! (laughs) I was like "OK, I love you too". Just kidding. So, anytime talking about Bob Dylan, no matter if you cover a song of his or not, or if you love Bob Dylan's words, it's always going to create this sort of vortex you can climb into… So, thanks Bob!

Do you need someone here to scream "Judas" before "Like a Rolling Stone"?

No, they do it on their own. I don't need any of that shit…. You're sweet!

You mentioned about being a single parent and I would like to ask you, how has your child changed your relationship with your music and your career? I think he's 10 years old now.

Yes. Thank you. He'll be 10 on the 20th. I got dropped from my label when he was a baby. You know, that happens a lot in every industry. When a woman has a baby, they're seen as unprofitable. But, he taught me to be stronger than that. He taught me to accept my strength and to be in my strengths. I thought for many years that I wasn't strong, or that if I was strong I wasn't being kind. But he taught me to stand in my strength and to find exquisite femininity in my strength and to feel valuable as a woman. More valuable than I realized I could feel. And to understand ancestrally how deeply spiritual the calling is when you become a mother, that it's very difficult to put quickly into words.

Wow! You used very nice words to describe it!

Thank you! (laughs)

In a more practical question, how has raising a small kid affected your touring schedule and plans?

He was on tour with me until the pandemic… the whole time, since he was two months old. Four and five and six. When he was 6, I started touring on my own. He has toured with me during summers and certain holidays and different things. Like he was just with me in Japan. He'll go with me to Europe to travel this July. He was supposed to go with me to Mexico this weekend, but because of the current presidential… our current politics, I don't want him to travel out of the country right now. I don't want him to risk. I mean, they're doing weird, very strange things at the borders with American citizens, so I don't know what to do...

You mentioned that your label dropped you after you had the kid. So how difficult was it to evolve in the music business? It's a man's world out there. Do you feel that you had to try more than a man to succeed?

Hmm, interesting. That's interesting. I've never ever been asked that question more than a man, and if that makes a woman, I'll take it! I've always had to be two people I think to survive. I've had to speak many levels of nuance to gain entry, to arrive, to get invited, to be allowed in, to sit at the table, to have my own table, to leave when I want to leave, to drive myself home, to have my own car. And that whole time to have and hold my own principles. All the while. And being a single mom also along the way to a boy has been very prideful, because I'm so proud of the person that he is as a kid, as a human being, as a young man. I'm proud of his beliefs, his core belief system. He knows right from wrong. He cherishes kindness, he cherishes helping. Instinctively he reacts to help someone who's in weakness. If there's a problem, he seeks to help solve a problem, he doesn't run. He seeks to face the conflict and that is ENORMOUS for me as a single woman, a single mother, because I see the world asking women...

You're doing something correctly.

(laughs) Or I've been a tool to help him see correctly the world around him. They say that children are actually geniuses. There's been like tests done about how they lose their primal intellect that you can't teach by the time they're an adult that they become like these machine thinkers...

My son taught me to stand in my strength and to find exquisite femininity in my strength and to feel valuable as a woman. More valuable than I realized I could feel

They don't filter their feelings.

No, they don't choose sides. If they make a choice, it's through communicating questions. "Mom, why is that person being treated like shit because they have one arm?" Well, because having one arm it doesn't look normal to most people, and most people are afraid of what they don't know. So they feel scared. So they run from their feelings. They don't like to feel scared, so they don't want to talk to the person with one arm, because it makes themselves feel scared of those feelings. They're not actually afraid of the person with one arm. They're just afraid of how that makes them feel. So, they'd rather be cold to the person with one arm. But my son understands it instantly. "Oh, I see". And he will go talk to the person with one arm and be like "hey, man, what's up?" Just as if he would go and talk to someone else. To anyone he would go and talk to them and he might say some question about "Does your mom also do interviews on the phone with people from Greece?", "Is your mom a singer?" You know what I'm saying? And that unbridled clarity they have, that transparency... That's what we ultimately are... Transparent!

Should I ask you if there if there are any plans for new material from you?

Yeah! Go for it.

The last record I think was a covers album, then the Dylan record. So are you going to release anything new or original material?

Yeah. I have already been doing it. I've got about seven recordings so far or more, but I I'm just working on those right now.

That's more than half a record, I think.

Yeah, maybe.

Maybe, if you put them all in.

The problem with me is that I think with every record - maybe every artist has this issue - but I start building something and then I sometimes get to another side or area of where I'm working and I start like building on it. And then I start doing something else. And then I start building something else. And then I start scooting around with what I've been building. And then, sonically, it starts taking on a different shape. And then I start having two absolutely contrasting shapes of materials. And I don't know which emotion to pull from: sadness or victory? Usually, it's sadness… sad songs or victory songs. And I never know which ones to pull from and I usually end up pulling from both. So that's where I'm at right now. I'm growing my crops and I'm not sure what's going to come out… (laughs)

Never mind, because you will discover it. That's better. I think it's better to do that.

Yeah. Whether I like it or not.

Yeah, It's better to not know and discover it.

Well, that's the way I do art in general. And conversations. I know there are people that have like publicists that do like "These are the questions you should answer. These are the questions you should say "No comment". You should speak about this". I have had people in the past tell me "don't talk about politics"… I've had people tell me that before. Anyway, I like to approach things like a little tadpole in a murky pond. It's like, you know, just on a quest for life. I'm just one of the many microorganisms out here, just doing what I do. And I don't really want to have a crystal ball or a receipt to tell me "this is what I'm doing and this is what it's going to be like". I feel like if we could make one prayer to Buddha or Allah or Christ or the Universal Mother God, or the sea or the great Stardust… if we could make such a wish, be in command and like… my son asks me all the time "What's the one wish you could prophesize to be true?" I'm about to sit here all year and write that damn wish down, because you don't want to get a single spec wrong. You got to outthink it, because we are not that intelligent. Yes, I don't know what my next record will be like and the fact of me not wanting to know is me being just not smart enough to know. I'm not smart enough to know what it's gonna be like, honestly!

I don't know what my next record will be like and the fact of me not wanting to know is me being just not smart enough to know

I don't think that it's a smartness issue.

I mean, they have, like those CIA programs where they have people who are psychics. I know that we are psychic entities. I know that through dreaming. They have, like vortex healers that work through dreaming and it's reality. I've had psychic dreams. We all do. But we don't have teachers yet or we haven't known about them that can teach us these things to communicate with our third eye. Like dolphins can project images, like sharks can project image, sense through smell, whatever. I think that's why dolphins love us so much, because they we just give them so many images from our brain. We're not aware that they're picking up… But, yeah, I forgot your question.

It was about the new record, but I think we got the answer!

Yeah. I forgot what your question was…

It was about the new record we were talking about the new record.

Yeah, yeah. But, the last thing you had said...

The last the last thing was that you said that you are not smart enough to know how it's going to sound. And I think that I told you that it's not about being smart.

Yeah, it's not an issue to be smart, but maybe I already know. You know, like the dolphin. Maybe the true psychic reality is that they're psychic, and that's why they’re in the ocean, because they always knew that that's the safest, healthiest place to be. "We just had to crawl out of there and become extraterrestrial. Aliens of the ocean." I'm just kidding… I’m sorry.

I'm having a great time talking to you, but our meeting is going to end in a couple of minutes. So, would you like to close this conversation with a message your fans here?

Please be gentle and kind to yourself. Lift your face up to the sun and warm your heart in these times of confusion and fear. We have to remember to choose faith in ourselves and our joy. And remember that we are powerful when we're grounded on our feet and our faces looking up to the sky and the sun, and we choose to smile through these days. We choose to find the beauty and the kindness in ourselves and in our days, it will make every day, much more worth the worry.

Nice words again!

Thank you!

Thank you very much Chan for the conversation.

It's gonna be OK. It's all gonna be OK. We've been through struggle before. We just have to get through it. We have to help. We have to be human beings…

And we will be.

Yeah, because we are! (laughs) The lesson here is we've always been human beings.

I will be very glad to see you in May.

Thank you, sweetheart. Have a great day.

You too!

Thank you and goodbye! Geia mas! (laughs)

Bye bye! Arigatō!

Arigatō gozaimasu!

Bye bye, cheers!

Bye honey!

Η Cat Power εμφανίζεται με το συγκρότημά της στο Floyd στις 30 Μαΐου και θα αποδώσει στην ολότητά του τον ιστορικό ζωντανό δίσκο του Bob Dylan με τίτλο "The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert". Εισιτήρια εδώ.