page_title: Cat Power
section_title: 2004–11: Mainstream success
hierarchical_section_title: Cat Power / Career / 2004–11: Mainstream success
caption_attribution_description: English: Performing at the Theatre of the Living Arts, Philadelphia, 12th June 2006
context_page_description: Charlyn Marie "Chan" Marshall, better known by her stage name Cat Power, is an American singer-songwriter, musician, occasional actress, and model. Cat Power was originally the name of Marshall's first band, but has become her stage name as a solo artist.
  Born in Atlanta, Marshall was raised throughout the southern United States, and began performing in local bands in Atlanta in the early 1990s. After opening for Liz Phair in 1993, she worked with Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth and Tim Foljahn of Two Dollar Guitar, with whom she recorded her first two albums, Dear Sir and Myra Lee, on the same day in 1994. In 1996, she signed with Matador Records, and released a third album of new material with Shelley and Foljahn, What Would the Community Think. Following this, she released the critically acclaimed Moon Pix, recorded with members of Dirty Three, and The Covers Record, a collection of sparsely arranged cover songs.
  After a brief hiatus she released You Are Free, featuring guest musicians Dave Grohl and Eddie Vedder, followed by the soul-influenced The Greatest, recorded with numerous Memphis studio musicians. A second album of cover tracks, Jukebox, was released in 2008.
context_section_description: In October 2004, Matador released the DVD film Speaking for Trees, which featured a continuous, nearly two-hour static shot of Marshall performing with her guitar in a woodland. The set was accompanied by an audio CD containing the 18-minute song "Willie Deadwilder," featuring M. Ward also on guitar.
  On January 22, 2006, Marshall released her seventh album, The Greatest, a Southern soul-influenced album of new material featuring veteran Memphis studio musicians, including Mabon "Teenie" Hodges, Leroy Hodges, David Smith, and Steve Potts. The album debuted at 34 on the Billboard 200 and critics noted its relatively "polished and accessible" sound, predicting it was "going to gain her a lot of new fans." The Greatest met with critical acclaim, and won the 2006 Shortlist Music Prize, making Marshall the first woman to win the honor. It was also named the number 6 best album of 2006 by Rolling Stone Magazine.
  Simultaneously, Marshall collaborated with several other musicians on different projects, including Mick Collins on a recording of Ludwig Rellstab's poem "Auf Dem Strom" for the film Wayne County Ramblin'; a duet with singer-model Karen Elson on an English cover of Serge Gainsbourg's "Je t'aime... moi non plus" for the tribute album Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited (2007); lead vocals on the Ensemble track "Disown, Delete"; and a reworked version of "Revelations" with Yoko Ono for Ono's 2007 album Yes, I'm a Witch.
  In the fall of 2006, Marshall became a celebrity spokesperson for a line of jewelry from Chanel, after being seen by Karl Lagerfeld smoking a cigarette outside the Mercer Hotel in New York. Lagerfeld chose Cat Power for the soundtrack to his spring 2007 fashion show. He also photographed Marshall for a Purple feature.
  In 2007, Marshall contributed songs to the soundtrack of Ethan Hawke's film The Hottest State, recording with Jesse Harris and Terry Manning, and the Academy Award-winning film Juno. The same year, she made her feature film debut acting in My Blueberry Nights opposite Jude Law, appearing in a small role. She also appeared in the role of a postal worker in Doug Aitken's MoMA installation Sleepwalkers, which followed the nocturnal lives of five city dwellers.
   
  In January 2008, Marshall released her second covers album, Jukebox. Recorded with her recently assembled "Dirty Delta Blues Band", which consisted of Judah Bauer from the Blues Explosion, Gregg Foreman of The Delta 72, Erik Paparazzi of Lizard Music and Jim White of Dirty Three, the album featured the original song "Song to Bobby," Marshall's tribute to Bob Dylan, and a reworking of the Moon Pix song "Metal Heart." She also collaborated with Beck and producer Danger Mouse on the album Modern Guilt (2008): She contributed backing vocals to two tracks, "Orphans" and "Walls". The album was released in July of that year.
  In September 2008, Marshall and members of the Dirty Delta Blues (Erik Paparazzi and Gregg Foreman) recorded their version of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" for a Lincoln car commercial. In 2013, Cat Power's version of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" was used in Apple's Christmas commercial "Misunderstood." In December 2008, she released Dark End of the Street, an EP consisting of songs left over from the Jukebox sessions. In 2009, she provided backing vocals on Marianne Faithfull's cover of "Hold On, Hold On" by Neko Case on the 2009 album Easy Come Easy Go. In 2011, she also featured as guest vocalist on "Tonight You Belong to Me" on Eddie Vedder's Ukulele Songs.
caption: Marshall performing in Philadelphia, 2006
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