TUE., DECEMBER 19, 2006
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Three Fates: Cat Power, Karen Dalton and Nico
by Lenny Kaye
It can be lonely, frighteningly so.
Nico, on the stage of the Squat Theater on W. 23rd St., astride her harmonium; Karen Dalton, lighting up the early Greenwich Village folk scene, frailing a long-necked banjo; Cat Power restlessly hovering over piano keys in the spirit realm of Memphis.
This emotional transference and transcendence can motivate and sometimes even entertain an audience; but ultimately, making art is a private dialogue between our souls and our selves.
Nico was the muse made manifest of the Velvet Underground, trading a walk-on in Fellini's classic La Dolce Vita to find her true cinema in Warhol's studio; Warhol paired her with the Velvets, adding even more layers of ambiguity to an already overheated mix of avant and old guard, all tomorrow’s parties. Her pale innocence and disembodied bel canto had a sultry allure — more Garbo than Dietrich, to contrast the classic northern Europeans — and her first proper solo album surprised anyone who thought she was in the Underground for her looks only. Chelsea Girl was the Grand Hotel updated to the Superstar '60s, amid folky and chamber music settings of songs by Reed/Cale and newcomers like Jackson Browne. But she was not made for easier listening, as her next Circe-like album, The Marble Index, found her singing into a gale of windswept dissonances.
She always howled the same song, despite who played with her or produced her, and her live albums, of which eMusic has more than a couple, enhance this solitary spectral quality. On Live Heroes, she turns “My Funny Valentine” into the tears of a clown, and does a signature turn on the Doors’ “The End.” Janitor of Lunacy, recorded in Manchester, is rockish in places, but still leaves room for her unaccompanied hymnal (she sings an acappella “All Tomorrow’s Parties”) and keyboard; my favorite moment is when she asks for “more echo on my voice” on the title song, the harmonium warming to its maddening whine. Nico truly did understand the ultimate alone, as James Young’s haunting — and even affectionate — '80s tour diary, The End, would show, despite the sad spiral of her final years and untimely end after a bicycle accident in 1988, and the timeless, world-weary, and redemptive melancholia of her greatest hits.
Karen Dalton came to New York from the wild west, bearing Cherokee heritage and an affinity with nature (it is said that plants would grow into her window from the outside), which perhaps is the way she mesmerized the early Bleecker-Macdougal crowd. Her voice had a mind of its own, jazz-like (the usual comparison to Billie Holiday is one of approach rather than harmonic, Karen’s voice more prone to a sudden skid or skitter; and she’s a holler girl, veering close to Jean Ritchie territory, which is high mountain praise indeed) in a folk scene newly evolving from square dancing, “old-time music,” and the Kingston Trio.
Though regarded highly by such as Fred Neil and Bob Dylan, who surely took heed of Karen’s way with an Appalachia ballad — “Katie Cruel” is like an extant field recording — to form his own ideas of syllabillying, Dalton never could face the cut-into-stone defining nature of a record. She only recorded officially two times. Once, on the sly during a Neil session, caught unawares, and twice, a let’s-make-a-record produced by bassist Harvey Brooks in Woodstock, released in 197l. This latter foray into pop-ish music, In My Own Time, complete with a wrenching version of “When A Man Loves A Woman,” is newly returned to the world after being impossible to find for years, and has received orchids by ardent admirers like Nick Cave and Devendra Banhart (and, disclosing, myself, who contributed liner notes to the hard copy of this album). Fred Neil (“Something On Your Mind”) and Richard Manuel’s “In a Station” all fall under her spell, and there’s even an uptempo “How Sweet It Is” that seems even more poignant given her inability to halt the bitters of her life, to shake dependencies and her ultimate homelessness.
Perhaps Chan Marshall, who assumes the persona of Cat Power, has found her way to where she might more feel more at down-home. The Greatest is a glowing record, steeped in Mississippi delta silt, born of a deep humility to the gift of creation that belies its title. Though her live performances have been known to be sidetracked by ineffable shyness and awkward moments of uncertainty, she has not backed into everlasting despair. For one, she has too good a work ethic, with several varied and challenging records, each seeming to move in a different direction. Sometimes she might have felt herself pulled apart; and so it was with a welcome eye that I read a recent newspaper article describing how, in the aftermath of making this album, on the verge of a tour, she took to her bed in a haze of alcohol and medication and listened obsessively to Miles Davis, until she was convinced to seek successful recovery help. The new Chan has been able to look her audience in the eye, her self and her art as affirmation, and the clarity has only enhanced her emotive delivery.
In such circumstances, The Greatest might be expected to send a warning signal of impending breakdown, but the opposite is true: a song like “Where Is My Love” implies wish fulfillment about to be realized, enhanced by the aliveness of the songs, three or four chords turned over and over while Chan meditates and the band (the feel is not r&b, despite the Hi-Stax presence, more the privacy of the late-night studio) heightens the spare arrangements, filled out with sympathetic strings and guitar textures. “Lived in Bars” accesses her inner Rosie and the Originals, with a saxophone-led horn section providing the call of response; “Love and Communication” cadences as deliberately as the Beatles’ “She’s So Heavy”: "Can you tell if there's something better,” she sings, and then answers her own question: “There always is,” a confessional suffused with hope. “Living Proof” offers just that, too — the promise that there will be a next note.
Nico, on the stage of the Squat Theater on W. 23rd St., astride her harmonium; Karen Dalton, lighting up the early Greenwich Village folk scene, frailing a long-necked banjo; Cat Power restlessly hovering over piano keys in the spirit realm of Memphis.
This emotional transference and transcendence can motivate and sometimes even entertain an audience; but ultimately, making art is a private dialogue between our souls and our selves.
Nico was the muse made manifest of the Velvet Underground, trading a walk-on in Fellini's classic La Dolce Vita to find her true cinema in Warhol's studio; Warhol paired her with the Velvets, adding even more layers of ambiguity to an already overheated mix of avant and old guard, all tomorrow’s parties. Her pale innocence and disembodied bel canto had a sultry allure — more Garbo than Dietrich, to contrast the classic northern Europeans — and her first proper solo album surprised anyone who thought she was in the Underground for her looks only. Chelsea Girl was the Grand Hotel updated to the Superstar '60s, amid folky and chamber music settings of songs by Reed/Cale and newcomers like Jackson Browne. But she was not made for easier listening, as her next Circe-like album, The Marble Index, found her singing into a gale of windswept dissonances.
She always howled the same song, despite who played with her or produced her, and her live albums, of which eMusic has more than a couple, enhance this solitary spectral quality. On Live Heroes, she turns “My Funny Valentine” into the tears of a clown, and does a signature turn on the Doors’ “The End.” Janitor of Lunacy, recorded in Manchester, is rockish in places, but still leaves room for her unaccompanied hymnal (she sings an acappella “All Tomorrow’s Parties”) and keyboard; my favorite moment is when she asks for “more echo on my voice” on the title song, the harmonium warming to its maddening whine. Nico truly did understand the ultimate alone, as James Young’s haunting — and even affectionate — '80s tour diary, The End, would show, despite the sad spiral of her final years and untimely end after a bicycle accident in 1988, and the timeless, world-weary, and redemptive melancholia of her greatest hits.
Karen Dalton came to New York from the wild west, bearing Cherokee heritage and an affinity with nature (it is said that plants would grow into her window from the outside), which perhaps is the way she mesmerized the early Bleecker-Macdougal crowd. Her voice had a mind of its own, jazz-like (the usual comparison to Billie Holiday is one of approach rather than harmonic, Karen’s voice more prone to a sudden skid or skitter; and she’s a holler girl, veering close to Jean Ritchie territory, which is high mountain praise indeed) in a folk scene newly evolving from square dancing, “old-time music,” and the Kingston Trio.
Though regarded highly by such as Fred Neil and Bob Dylan, who surely took heed of Karen’s way with an Appalachia ballad — “Katie Cruel” is like an extant field recording — to form his own ideas of syllabillying, Dalton never could face the cut-into-stone defining nature of a record. She only recorded officially two times. Once, on the sly during a Neil session, caught unawares, and twice, a let’s-make-a-record produced by bassist Harvey Brooks in Woodstock, released in 197l. This latter foray into pop-ish music, In My Own Time, complete with a wrenching version of “When A Man Loves A Woman,” is newly returned to the world after being impossible to find for years, and has received orchids by ardent admirers like Nick Cave and Devendra Banhart (and, disclosing, myself, who contributed liner notes to the hard copy of this album). Fred Neil (“Something On Your Mind”) and Richard Manuel’s “In a Station” all fall under her spell, and there’s even an uptempo “How Sweet It Is” that seems even more poignant given her inability to halt the bitters of her life, to shake dependencies and her ultimate homelessness.
Perhaps Chan Marshall, who assumes the persona of Cat Power, has found her way to where she might more feel more at down-home. The Greatest is a glowing record, steeped in Mississippi delta silt, born of a deep humility to the gift of creation that belies its title. Though her live performances have been known to be sidetracked by ineffable shyness and awkward moments of uncertainty, she has not backed into everlasting despair. For one, she has too good a work ethic, with several varied and challenging records, each seeming to move in a different direction. Sometimes she might have felt herself pulled apart; and so it was with a welcome eye that I read a recent newspaper article describing how, in the aftermath of making this album, on the verge of a tour, she took to her bed in a haze of alcohol and medication and listened obsessively to Miles Davis, until she was convinced to seek successful recovery help. The new Chan has been able to look her audience in the eye, her self and her art as affirmation, and the clarity has only enhanced her emotive delivery.
In such circumstances, The Greatest might be expected to send a warning signal of impending breakdown, but the opposite is true: a song like “Where Is My Love” implies wish fulfillment about to be realized, enhanced by the aliveness of the songs, three or four chords turned over and over while Chan meditates and the band (the feel is not r&b, despite the Hi-Stax presence, more the privacy of the late-night studio) heightens the spare arrangements, filled out with sympathetic strings and guitar textures. “Lived in Bars” accesses her inner Rosie and the Originals, with a saxophone-led horn section providing the call of response; “Love and Communication” cadences as deliberately as the Beatles’ “She’s So Heavy”: "Can you tell if there's something better,” she sings, and then answers her own question: “There always is,” a confessional suffused with hope. “Living Proof” offers just that, too — the promise that there will be a next note.
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