Music reviewer Will Hermes examines how singer/songwriter Cat Energy re-created the legendary 1966 Bob Dylan live performance throughout which the folks icon performed an electrical guitar and acquired jeered.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
On Could 17, 1966, Bob Dylan performed a live performance in England that went down in historical past. As a substitute of the topical people songs he was identified for, he introduced an electrical guitar and a band. They usually performed loud.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BOB DYLAN: (Singing) As soon as upon a time, you dressed so high-quality, threw the bums a dime in your prime, did not you?
FADEL: Now, the folkies within the crowd weren’t comfortable. One famously yelled out, Judas. However the present marked a shift in Dylan’s profession and the arc of fashionable music. Now singer-songwriter Chan Marshall, higher referred to as Cat Energy, has issued a song-by-song recreation of this legendary live performance. Will Hermes has this evaluation.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “SHE BELONGS TO ME”)
CAT POWER: (Singing) She’s acquired every part she wants. She’s an artist. She do not look again.
WILL HERMES, BYLINE: Despite the fact that it was recorded in Manchester, the well-known bootleg of that Bob Dylan present was incorrectly titled “The Royal Albert Corridor Live performance.” Chan Marshall as soon as known as Dylan’s catalogue the Mount Everest of songwriting. So when supplied the prospect to carry out at London’s fabled Royal Albert Corridor, she impulsively agreed, with the caveat that she’d play all Dylan songs in a sly nod to the well-known bootleg. The stay album that resulted from her efficiency may appear to be a ginormous act of hubris however to not me. Marshall is each a superb songwriter and tune interpreter, now with 4 full-length albums of canopy songs. She’s certainly one of our Billie Holidays, Frank Sinatras, Nina Simones, a singer who uncovers new meanings and recent feelings in traditional songs.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “IT’S ALL OVER NOW, BABY BLUE”)
CAT POWER: (Singing) Yonder stands your orphan along with his gun, crying like a hearth within the solar. Look out. The saints are coming by. And it is throughout now, Child Blue.
HERMES: After all, Bob Dylan started his profession singing different folks’s songs. He nonetheless does it. And most of the biggest recordings of Dylan songs are by different artists. Assume Jimi Hendrix’s “All Alongside The Watchtower.”
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “ALL ALONG THE WATCHTOWER”)
JIMI HENDRIX: (Singing) There should be some sort of means out of right here, stated the joker to the thief.
HERMES: And The Byrds’ “Mr. Tambourine Man.”
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “MR. TAMBOURINE MAN”)
THE BYRDS: (Singing) Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a tune for me.
HERMES: Chan Marshall covers that one, too, unpacking the lonely restlessness of Dylan’s model with one which’s sultry and a bit of bit flirty.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “MR. TAMBOURINE MAN”)
CAT POWER: (Singing) Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a tune for me. Within the jingle jangle morning, I am going to come following you.
HERMES: “Cat Energy Sings Dylan” is, in a way, a kind of drag present, demonstrating what Shakespeare knew – how artists can reveal truths about gender and romance by cross-dressing. The album can also be a mash observe to a fellow singer-songwriter and a torch passing to certainly one of our nice torch singers.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “LIKE A ROLLING STONE”)
CAT POWER: (Singing) As soon as upon a time, you dressed so high-quality, threw the bums a dime in your prime, did not you?
FADEL: Cat Energy Sings Dylan: The Royal Albert Corridor Live performance” is obtainable on Domino Data. Critic Will Hermes is writer of the brand new biography “Lou Reed: The King of New York.”
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “LIKE A ROLLING STONE”)
CAT POWER: (Singing) You used…
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