It's rare for an artist to become so adept at cover versions that their re-workings sometimes actually better the originals, but then Chan Marshall, aka CAT POWER is surely one of such a rare breed: a performer capable of investing lingering magic into even the most staggering of source material.
And, make no mistake, it's some achievement to leave an indelibly brilliant imprint of your own when the hallowed ground you're treading on involves exhuming greatness of the calibre of James Carr's 'Dark End Of The Street', Creedence Clearwater Revival's 'Fortunate Son' and Otis Redding's 'I've Been Loving You Too Long'.
Of course, anyone lucky enough to have delved into the delights of Chan's recent 'Jukebox' album will know just how stunning her renditions can be, but the amazing news is that several of the tunes on this six-track EP date from those same album sessions, but have not officially seen the light of day until now. Although - for this reviewer - the Flying Burrito Brothers' version of 'Dark End Of The Street' arguably still shades it, there's no denying that Marshall's version is gorgeous: smoky and trembling of vocal and deep and spiritual of accompaniment. It is, without question, a thing of beauty and a joy forever regardless of comparison.
Similarly unreleased are these versions of Aretha Franklin's 'It Ain't Fair', the Sandy Denny/ Fairport Convention staple 'Who Knows Where The Time Goes' and – perhaps most intriguingly – The Pogues/ Brendan Behan's prison lament, 'The Auld Triangle'. Of these, she invests 'It Ain't Fair' with a vintage blues-y defiance you might expect, but renders major changes upon both 'The Auld Triangle' and 'Who Knows Where The Time Goes'. The former goes from jazzy, countrified creep to full-blown fiery and showstopping, while the Sandy Denny cover gets a real deconstruction job, with a bereft piano and organ backing accentuating the loneliness in the lyric beautifully.
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Elsewhere, only the supremely gifted or the supremely stupid dare to tinker with the Otis Redding songbook. Fortunately, Ms. Marshall has her feet planted in the former camp and has the wherewithal to take 'I've Been Loving You Too Long' on an emotional roller coaster all of her own making. It's great, though arguably bettered by her marvellous re-wiring of Creedence Clearwater's 'Fortunate Son'. Instead of John Fogerty's nostril-flarin' intensity, here it receives an expansive, Mazzy Star-style makeover with rolling, Mo Tucker-ish drumming from Judah Bauer and Chan simply smouldering through Fogerty's impassioned, anti-'Nam broadside. It's a song that rings every bit as true four decades on and remains enormously affecting in a contemporary context.
Which could just as easily be said for everything here, really. Whether it's vintage souther soul, raging Californian rock or English pastorality Chan Marshall decides to turn her hand to, she seems undaunted. 'The Dark End Of The Street' is clearly still a place where a secret assignation can make your heart sing.
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