This edition of ON the Beat was originally emailed to subscribers on February 29, 2024. To receive Josef Woodard’s music newsletter in your inbox each Thursday, sign up at independent.com/newsletters.
When last we caught Cat Power in 2022 at the Lobero, an ideal room for her special enigmatic charms, the unique artist born as Chan Marshall summoned up her signature moody mystique in the semi-dark. She slithered around the stage in a restless, cat-like style and wielded two microphones for timbre-shifting effect. The setlist touched on Cat Power classics but also tapped her then-recent Covers album, lending her voice and vibe to songs by a variety of artists including The Stones (the personally fitting “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”), The Pogues, Frank Ocean, and closing with Johnny Mathis (“Wild is the Wind”).
As much as her original music has its own particular expressive mojo, Cat Power possesses an inspired way with cover songs. She’s up to those interpretive tricks in a highly focused way on her latest project with the wordy but self-descriptive title, Cat Power Sings Dylan: the 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert, the basis of the current tour bringing her back to the Lobero on Wednesday, March 6.