"ARETHA, SING ONE FOR ME"

Yesterday, The Village Voice in San Francisco called our very own George Jackson for an interview.

They wanted to get his perspective on a cover of one of his most well-known songs.

Chan Marshall, better known as "Cat Power," covered George's Hi Records hit, "Aretha, Sing One For Me."

When the single was originally released in 1972, it jumped to #1 on the Memphis charts and hit #38 on the Billboard charts.



Her album, "Jukebox," was released January 21, 2008 and, according to Soundscan, has already sold 82,000 copies.

It's getting great reviews. We'll post the article once it touches down.

Her voice is so distinct and unique. She's got an incredible band and the song definitely touches a chord.

Congrats to George and to a job well done, Cat Power!!


Here is another review of the album from No Depression Magazine:

CAT POWER Jukebox (Matador)
(NODEPRESSION.NET) -- On Cat Power's last album, The Greatest, she tried her hand at mid-century southern soul, surrounded by a backing band of back-in-the-day southern musicians. It was an album of originals that felt like a collection of old-timey covers: Cat Power in Memphis.
Jukebox, while similar to The Greatest in sound and feel, really IS a collection of old-timey covers, her second in a decade (after 2000's The Covers Record).

Backed by a band that includes members of the Blues Explosion and Delta 72, Cat Power (a.k.a. Chan Marshall) slouches her way through a compelling and maddening and frequently remarkable grab-bag of songs ranging from the obvious (Joni Mitchell's "Blue", Bob Dylan's "I Believe In You") to the powerfully strange ("New York, New York", which is poorly mixed, but a bad idea in any case).

Marshall has an extraordinary voice, built both for sadness and remove: She's either incapable of irony, or incapable of anything else. Jukebox is comprised of vast, arid patches of affect broken up by occasional tiny outbursts of emotion. Her rendering of "Aretha, Sing One For Me" (popularized by R&B singer George Jackson) is simply sublime, as is an almost-snappy take on James Brown's "Lost Someone".

Elsewhere she's too careful, too grave, to make these songs her own. Unlike The Greatest, which was bona fide to its bones, Jukebox occasionally feels like something made by a downtown hipster surrounded by other downtown hipsters who are merely playing at a sound, instead of inhabiting it.

-- ALLISON STEWARTCopyright c. 2008 No Depression Inc. and/or Allison Stewart