Cat Power Sings Dylan - Tour 2025

In her own interpretation of that historic evening, the artist also known as Chan Marshall embodied each song with equal parts conviction and grace and a palpable sense of comfort, ultimately conveying the anarchic tension of Dylan's performance with a warm and radiant joy. The live album "Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert" features Marshall's captivating performance, which both lovingly honors her hero's historical impact and brings a startling new vitality to many of his most revered songs.

A gifted songwriter whose catalog includes three acclaimed covers albums (2000's The Covers Record, 2008's Jukebox, 2022's Covers), Marshall has a particularly strong affinity for the songwriter-poet she refers to as "God Dylan."

As with the original concert (and Dylan's entire 1966 world tour), Marshall played the first half of her set entirely acoustic, then went electric for the second half with the help of a full band:

guitarist Arsun Sorrenti, bassist Erik Paparozzi, multi-instrumentalists Aaron Embry (harmonica, piano) and Jordan Summers (organ, Wurlitzer), and drummer Josh Adams.

Throughout Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert, this rare intimacy with Dylan's material lights up every moment from the first seconds of the set-opening "She Belongs To Me," Marshall creates the oddly charming feeling of sharing songs that have lived in her heart for decades. Another song indelibly changed by Marshall's female perspective is "Just Like a Woman," which takes on a raw and endearing tenderness that adds to the sweeping sense of empathy that permeates her entire performance.

In a nod to the original concert's most famous moment, just before "Ballad of a Thin Man," an audience member calls out "Judas!", to which Marshall calmly invokes the name of Jesus. Marshall approached each song on the setlist with both genuine reverence and a deep understanding of the delicate nature of song interpretation.

"When someone covers a song you love, they can give you something you remember forever because they're performing it in their way, with their voice, with the way they intonate or hum a particular line," Marshall says. "I had, and still have, a huge amount of respect for the man who wrote so many songs that helped develop the conscious thinking of millions of people, that helped shape the way they see the world," says Marshall. "Even though my hands were shaking so much I had to keep them in my pockets, I felt very honored. It felt like a real honor to be standing there.