Cat Power and Dirty Delta Blues, courtesy of Chan Marshall and Big Hassle Media

To hear Chan Marshall live is to know her intimately. Her voice as Cat Power is feathery, yet earnest and kind, as if you’re listening to an old friend confide. Never one to perform for easy public consumption, Marshall stays true to herself and sings from a place of innermost feeling. It’s a quality that’s rare in contemporary music.

Cat Power started out in the 1990s mixing originals and covers, with the work of troubadours such as Tom Waits and Hank Williams appearing alongside her own lo-fi compositions. But it was her 2006 album, The Greatest, that marked a dramatic departure from the scrappy indie aesthetic of her first decade and an artistic transformation that Marshall is celebrating today with a 20th anniversary album tour.

Setting aside cover songs entirely for a less direct form of homage to her forbears, Marshall embraced a fuller, richer sound combining soul, indie and country for The Greatest, and recorded the album in the soul music capital of Memphis. The result was a beautiful blend of her melancholic songwriting with lush, gospel-y arrangements, the timelessness of soul imbued with a stark air of confession.

The title track, with its unsparing inward gaze, is relatable to anyone engaged in the struggle to find themselves: “Once I wanted to be the greatest / No wind or waterfall could stall me / And then came the rush of the flood / Stars of mine turned deep to dust.”

This tour has Marshall fronting a band of indie all-stars, Dirty Delta Blues, whom she’s worked with before (though not on the original sessions for The Greatest). Another present for her fans is Redux, a three-song EP released in March featuring covers of “Try Me” by James Brown and “Nothing Compares 2 U” by Prince along with a reworking of “Could We,” from The Greatest.

Slightly harder with a heavier blues sound, this is the version of “Could We” fans can expect on tour. The local date is also kind of an anniversary for anyone who saw Cat Power play a memorably soulful set at Miami’s Studio A in 2007.

Cat Power performs The Greatest 7pm Thursday, July 16 at ZeyZey in Miami. catpowermusic.com ~ Olivia Feldman