Cat Power Announces 'Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert'

Cat Power is set to release her captivating new live album, Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert, via Domino Recording Co. on Friday, November 10.

Recorded November 5, 2022 at London’s vaunted Royal Albert Hall, Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert sees the artist otherwise known as Chan Marshall delivering a song-for-song recreation of one of the most fabled and transformative live sets of all time. Held at the Manchester Free Trade Hall in May 1966 – but long known as the “Royal Albert Hall Concert” due to a mislabeled bootleg – the original performance saw Bob Dylan switching from acoustic to electric midway through the show, drawing the ire of folk purists and forever altering the course of rock ‘n’ roll. Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert both lovingly honors Dylan’s imprint on history and brings an enchanting vitality to many of his most revered songs, including “She Belongs to Me” and “Ballad of a Thin Man,” both of which premiere today. 

“More than the work of any other songwriter, Dylan’s songs have spoken to me, and inspired me since I first began hearing them at 5 years old,” said Marshall. 

Her rarefied intimacy with Dylan’s material illuminates every moment of Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert. From the very first seconds of the set-opening “She Belongs To Me.” Marshall creates the strangely charmed sensation of sharing songs that have lived in her heart for decades. 

“When singing ‘She Belongs To Me’ in the past, sometimes I turned it into a first-person narrative – ’I am an artist, I don’t look back.’ I really identified with it like that,” said Marshall. “But for the show at Royal Albert Hall, I of course, sang it the way it was originally written - with the respect for the composition…and the great composer.” 

For her hypnotic and haunting performance of “Ballad of a Thin Man,” Marshall’s vocal delivery skews toward soulful rather than sneering, yet still achieves a thrilling ferocity. In a nod to the most storied moment from the original concert, an audience member cries out “Judas!” just before “Ballad of a Thin Man” starts; Marshall then responds by serenely invoking the name of Jesus.  

“It was something impulsive. I wasn’t expecting the audience to recreate their part of the original show as well, but then I wanted to set the record straight – in a way, Dylan is a deity to all of us who write songs.” 

In a review of Cat Power’s Royal Albert Hall performance, the London Times exclaimed, “Now we know how much applause it takes to lift the Albert Hall.” The Telegraph summed it up in its 4-out- of-5-star review by calling it “pure celebration.” After those previous performances at the Sydney Opera House (May 2023) and the Royal Albert Hall in London (November 2022), American audiences will now be able to experience this unique show with two performances confirmed at Los Angeles, CA’s legendary Troubadour, the West Coast epicenter for the 1960’s folk scene explosion. Set for November 6 and 7, tickets will go on sale this Friday, September 15. More dates will be announced soon.