Watch Cat Power play Bob Dylan's 1966 Royal Albert Hall gig

Credit: Mario Sorrenti

Cat Power releases covers of Bob Dylan’s ‘Ballad of a Thin Man’ and ‘She Belongs To Me’

Tue 12 September 2023 14:58, UK

Last November, American folk rock hero Cat Power staged a live recreation of Bob Dylan‘s legendary 1966 concert at the Manchester Free Trade Hall, infamously known as the “Judas” concert.

For years, the performance was mislabeled on bootlegs as having taken place at the Royal Albert Hall, therefore, Power decided to bring the performance to its (technically incorrect) home more than four decades later.

Now, Cat Power (real name Chan Marshall) is releasing the performance as a live album, Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert. Throughout her own performance, Power played Dylan’s set song-for-song, with the singer even getting a good-natured “Judas” call of her own from the audience to pull the whole night together.

“It was something impulsive,” Marshall explained. “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.”

To preview the upcoming live LP, Cat Power has released two preview tracks from the performances. The first is a rendition of Dylan’s iconic ‘Ballad of a Thin Man’, while the second is a take on Dylan’s ‘She Belongs to Me’.

“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,” Marshall claimed. “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.”

As she alludes to in her statement, Power has covered Dylan frequently over her career. But the Royal Albert Hall concert was different – a direct invocation and nod to one of the most consequential live performances of all time. Only two months after the Manchester show, Dylan crashed his motorcycle near his home in Woodstock, New York, bringing his live career to a halt and refocusing his music on roots rock and country.

“I had and still have such respect for the man who crafted so many songs that helped develop conscious thinking in millions of people, helped shape the way they see the world,” Marshall concludes. “So even though my hands were shaking so much I had to keep them in my pockets, I felt real dignity for myself. It felt like a real honor for me to stand there.”

Check out Cat Power’s covers of ‘Ballad of a Thin Man’ and ‘She Belongs To Me’ down below. Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert is set for a November 10th release.