From Blonde Bob to Big Star to Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billie, the smartest of avant standard-bearers always knew the value of going south. Cat Power (Chan Marshall to the IRS) is the latest: for this record she’s decamped to Memphis’ Ardent studios, an erstwhile Stax second base, and hired a bunch of Al Green alumni in order to salt her fairest airs with old-timers’ licks.
The Greatest mostly filters old-world melancholia through modernist glass, as on the slow nocturnal sway of the title tune, with its vibrato guitar and ‘Moon River’ breezes whispering through the string charts, or ‘Where Is My Love’, which echoes great American songbook entries by Porter or Sondheim while simultaneously suggesting Huck Finn as a careworn drag queen.
Over Hammonds, pedal steel, horns and piano, Marshall emotes like mid-period Sinéad stranded in Beth Orton’s trailer park, but there’s also a rhythm section to cherish in the form of drummer Steve Potts and bass players Leroy Hodges and David Smith. Note how they negotiate a tricky gear shift in ‘Lived In Bars’, a problem of feel that would vex all but the most skilled of rhythm practitioners. Or the deft, effortless way they handle the slow swing of soul testimonials like ‘Living Proof’, the death-warmed-up balladry of ‘The Moon’.
More than once I’m put in mind of Neil’s Harvest by way of Mr Chilton, or on ‘Hate’, the record Jeff Buckley might have made had he survived the treacherous Mississippi undertow. The Greatest manages to wallow in songwriterly angst and anxiety without forsaking the sensuality of old soul, country-blues and gospel.