CD Choice:Covers

CAT POWER Jukebox Matador ****

Chan "Cat Power" Marshall has been in and around the music industry houses so many times that she knows the territory like the back of her hand.

The Atlanta born singer-songwriter released her debut album (Dear Sir) in 1995. It was a noisy affair that presaged her 1998 follow-up, the all-too-scary Moon Pix. Added to these two records were her forays into the live setting - Cat suffered from stage fright so much it was a wonder promoters ever bothered to book her.

Jukebox is a long and winding mile away from the early years. Even more of a developmental leap forward than her 2003 album, You Are Free, Jukebox

(as its title directly suggests) sees Cat pick and choose some of the songs that saved her from a life stacking shelves in Wal-Mart. She's gone karaoke before (2000's The Covers Record) but Jukebox is smarter, better, bigger, braver and even more down her unlit street.

It begins strange and slightly surreal with her idiosyncratic take on Theme from New York, New York. Here Cat revokes the triumphalism of Frank Sinatra's version and turns the song into something akin to an itinerant's nightmare, not so much deconstructed as devolved. This theme of grubbiness and despair is continued in her versions of Jesse Mae Hemphill's Lord, Help the Poor and Needy and Billie Holiday's Don't Explain.

Two other women's song - Janis Joplin's Woman Left Lonely and Joni Mitchell's Blue - are suitably treated. Each version is a yard and half away from the original, yet both tremble with the touch and feel of authenticity.

Musically, it's a broiling, soulful affair, recorded in Memphis and featuring such top-quality musicians as Spooner Oldham and, from Al Green's band, Teenie Hodges. Meanwhile, Cat's own crew, Dirty Delta Blues, pick up the pieces and run away with them. You'll be tempted, too, when you cop an earful of this one. www.catpowerthegreatest.com  - TONY CLAYTON-LEA

Download track: Lord, Help the Poor and Needy