Chan Marshall also known as Cat Power, is an American musician born on January 21, 1972, in Atlanta Georgia. Her music career started off with her band named Cat Power, but after going solo she took the name Cat Power for herself. Her music consists of punk, folk, and blues. Growing up she had a very chaotic family with an absent father who was a musician and an alcoholic mom, while switching schools 10 different times because of her father’s profession. Chan decided to drop out of high school at age sixteen and stayed with her father since she became estranged from her mom. at age 19, she self-taught herself to play the guitar, a 1950s silvertone. She knew nothing about music, but her best friend Shaun, who passed away, showed her how to put her finger on a chord, “That minor sound(sad) is the representation of most of my songs”.
Chan would have jam sessions in a basement with Marc Moore, Damon Moore, Glen Thrasher, and Fletcher Liegerot in Atlanta in 1980. While they practiced and played, the group decided to try out for performances and they had no name for their band yet. Until they saw a guy wearing a hat that said ”Cat diesel power”. Chan took this name and cut out the diesel thus having Cat power. While performing her music she said in an interview that at the time, her shows were more experimental and the shows were a chance for her and her group to get drunk and take drugs. Chan recorded her first two albums Myra Lee and Dear Sir in a single day in 1994, in a small basement where they wrote at least 20 songs, splitting them making it Myra Lee and Dear Sir. In 1996, she signed to Matador Records. In the early 2000s, Chan started modeling for jewelry like Chanel, and magazine companies like New York Magazine because Karl Lageferd liked the way she looked and posed when smoking. Lageferd ended up picking her as the background music for his spring 2007 fashion show. Chan released her 10th album Wanderer which was then rejected by her labeling company Matador Records, this led to the breakup between Matador and Chan, they stated that the album was not good enough while Chan said in an interview that the album Wanderer was not supposted to be a big hit. While switching music labels, she did not change anything from Wanderer besides adding 1 more track featuring Lana Del Rey, which was a shock to a lot of people. Chan came out and said that some Matador record executives would compare her music to other artists like Adele and pointed out what she needed to do better. Chan said that Matador said the same thing when she was recording the album “Sun” and that they were asking for “This and that and I did it-I got top 10” and “I understood I was the product,” She said, “and I always thought I was a person.” Cat Power’s music consists of blues, punk, folk, indie rock. In my opinion, I think her music expresses deep meanings in songs while still giving a beautiful sad calm vibe in the best way. However, some people find her music depressing, in my opinion, some of her songs do sound depressing, but the way her music isn’t overproduced and loud it comes off as relaxing and calm.
