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	Chan Marshall, a.k.a. Cat Power, has rebounded from years of alcoholism with a voice and on-stage act worthy of her 2006 album title, The Greatest.

My pubes are in The New Yorker!” Chan Marshall groans playfully. Leaping up off the couch inside her South Beach condo’s living room, she pulls her Richard Avedon-shot portrait for that magazine off an adjoining wall, admiring her captured state of dishabille—partially unzipped jeans and all. Upon its mid-2003 publication, this photo seemed to herald her full-fledged evolution beyond the indie-rock milieu she’d conquered as the singer Cat Power, and into the ranks of what photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson once called “the curious and wondrous people” who compose “the inhabitants of an Avedon World.” Immortalized by the famed black-and-white portraitist, she had now joined the select host of cultural icons who had posed inside his Manhattan studio, a pantheon stretching back to Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe.

Yet behind her portrait’s mischievous grin and charged sexuality was a more revealing backstory. “I was so drunk I could barely stand up,” Marshall recalls of the weeklong bender that deposited her in front of Avedon’s lens. “My organs were so messed up from drinking I was in physical pain. I couldn’t zip up my pants because my stomach was killing me. I didn’t even realize I wasn’t wearing underwear until the magazine came out.” With a touch of embarrassment, she adds, “I had to explain to my grandmother that this was the definitive photographer of the 20th century.”

There would be two more years of live concerts performed in a drunken stupor, mostly solo affairs that drew crowds as much for their train-wreck theatricality as for any actual music being performed. Between Marshall’s endless string of false starts and often nonsensical ramblings, there’d be a startling snippet here—a bluesy, piano-pounding take on the Electric Eels punk anthem “Agitated”—or an engrossing snatch there—an ethereal version of Sandy Denny’s lament “Who Knows Where the Time Goes?”—to suddenly remind one of just how angelic her voice was, and just how much talent was being squandered.

“It makes me want to cry when I think about those shows,” Marshall says softly. “But even though I wasn’t singing well, I wasn’t playing well, and my songs are emotionally elementary, there was still a connection with the audience. That helped me grow, even if it wasn’t much fun.”

It was in that spirit that she recorded this year’s The Greatest, not just her own crowning achievement, but easily one of 2006’s finest albums. A timeless collection of blue-eyed soul that evokes Dusty Springfield’s Dusty in Memphis, Marshall traveled to that same Tennessee city to woodshed with Al Green’s ’70s guitarist and bassist, Teenie and Leroy Hodges, as well as a full complement of horns and strings assembled with the help of musicologist Robert Gordon.

Chan Marshall on the beach near her South of Fifth condo. During the shoot, a platoon of military men in training happened by, and Cat jumped right in.

The Greatest’s release in January should have been a moment of triumph for Marshall. Instead, she flew home to South Beach, pulled the shades, turned off her phone and began drinking herself to death. A concerned friend, visiting New York painter Susanna Vapnek, literally dragged her off to Mount Sinai hospital and a detox program.

Today, almost a year into her sobriety (albeit one in which she still allows herself a monthly glass of wine), Marshall admits the adult playground of the Beach may not be the most obvious place to reassemble her life. However, “I live blocks from the excitement,” she says of her South of Fifth condo. “That quietness made me move here.” Interrupted by the noisy exhaust of a truck outside, she continues with a frown: “Well, the neighborhood is changing. There used to be a lot less traffic. But it’s still like Manhattan after a nuclear war. Upper Manhattan has just melted and all that’s left is this small tip of an island.” With a laugh, she turns practically giddy at describing the semideserted vibe that can still arise at night: “Be careful going above Fifth Street, there are different tribes up there!”

Encroaching development aside, the area does remain a good place to lie low. Unlike in New York City, her former home, many of Marshall’s Beach friends seem only vaguely aware of her records—or even that she sings for a living. “I thought she was a model!” marvels Queber “QB” Charles, a hip-hop producer in her social circle—a group which, in true South Beach fashion, appears much more impressed with her new gig as the spokesmodel for Chanel jewelry.


She belts out standards with a focused intensity that puts all her earlier Miami concerts to shame.

She was spotted by Karl Lagerfeld himself as she sat atop a pile of her luggage and guitar cases outside Manhattan’s Mercer hotel; the Chanel designer was immediately taken. “I was multitasking,” Marshall chuckles. “I was on my phone, smoking a cigarette, sipping a bottle of water and eating an apple. Karl walks up and says, ‘Only a girl can look glamorous when smoking.’ I lowered my sunglasses and showed him the rings under my eyes.” Just like with Avedon before him, that smudged beauty only made Lagerfeld all the more smitten.

The ad campaign has yet to begin, but the Chanel freebies have already started arriving. “I come from a long line of nothing,” Marshall says of her peripatetic Southern upbringing. “My great-grandmother was a cotton picker. I never could’ve imagined my feet inside a pair of fine Chanel boots.” It’s a shift she’s still adjusting to. As she prepares to head out for a late-night karaoke session, she begins running down her chic wardrobe—belt by Louis Vuitton, Hermès swimsuit doubling as a tank top—yet I’m confused by the identity of the design team responsible for her olive-green military-styled shirt.

“It’s from the Boy Scouts of America,” she repeats.

Is that a new hipster line, like Imitation of Christ?

Members of Marshall’s Miami clique: Bottom row, left to right: Philippe Falca, entrepreneur; Alejandro Gonzalez, cryogenic specialist; Tatanka Guerrero, designer/skater; Paulo Cardoso, skater. On the stairs, left to right: Queber “QB” Charles, producer; Marshall; Stephen Attelus, web designer; Meltem Ulker, stylist; Gregory Pierresaint, rapper; Jhony Jean, rapper; Gregg Foreman, musician/DJ. Top row, left to right: Aiko Fuji, Nobu manager; Rudy Marrero, Marc Jacobs Bal Harbour; Leslie Munsell, Van Michael makeup artist; Eileen Garcia, photographer; Rosalyn Rodriguez, Marc Jacobs Bal Harbour; Armando Alexander, singer/actor.

Marshall looks puzzled: “No, it’s a Boy Scouts shirt! From the Salvation Army!” Her sneakers are, natch, from Kmart’s fall Anchor Bay collection.

Of course, it’s her voice that matters most, and standing on-stage at Studio, the Shelborne hotel’s basement karaoke bar, Marshall has never sounded better. Throwing her head back, she belts out country standards from Kitty Wells and Hank Williams with a focused intensity that puts all her earlier Miami concerts to shame. Those tunes are topped only by a duet on “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” with Gregg Foreman, her new band’s organist/guitarist (best known locally for his DJ residences), holding down the Tom Petty role and Marshall summoning up her best Stevie Nicks growl. The handful of awed tourists in attendance may have no idea who this woman with the hair-rising pipes is, but they know a star when they hear one, rushing forward afterwards.

By 3 a.m. I’m exhausted, though Marshall looks genuinely at peace, and more than able to bring those karaoke vocal skills to her next tour. “I’m much freer now that I’m sober,” she says. “For the first time in my career”—she drawls the word out mockingly—“I’m just standing there singing, seeing people’s faces clearly, like when I was a little kid.”

You know, Chan, now that you’ve sold several-hundred-thousand records and performed for fans all around the world, it’s safe to stop using the word “career” ironically.

“I still feel a little weird saying it.” She pauses to reconsider and then flashes a familiar grin: “I guess I have a career now.”

1. Islamorada’s Full Moon Party,
December 4th
When local preservationists start decrying the latest burst of crass commercialization to hit Lincoln Road, whether it’s the appearance of a new chain store or an infestation of mimes, it’s usually Key West they invoke as the road thankfully not taken. “This is Miami Beach,” proudly declared former City Commissioner Nancy Liebman at one contentious City Hall meeting. “If you want honky-tonk, go to the Keys!”

Liebman might feel a little more charitable towards our presumably Girls Gone Wild-obsessed neighbors were she to stop for a weekend in Islamorada, about halfway down the Keys’ chain of bucolic islands, approximately 90 minutes from Miami. Don’t be thrown by some of the visual puns emblazoning the town’s eateries (the Squid Row seafood joint and the leaning Tower of Pizza are my personal cringe-inducing faves). There’s homegrown culture aplenty here, especially if you’re looking for a getaway that’s unpretentiously Prada-free without being, ahem, “honky-tonk.”

An easy excuse to head south is the monthly Full Moon Party, scheduled to coincide with, you guessed it, the waxing of the full moon, which casts an invitingly eerie light over the shared seaside backyard of the hosting Morada Bay Beach Café and the more upscale Pierre’s Restaurant. The latter’s outdoor second-floor veranda and British-colonial plantation layout make for the perfect Graham Greene-esque setting from which to dine while taking in the party’s tribal drumming below. Tip your waiter enough and he’ll probably even whisper how “the natives are getting restless” as you imperiously sip your glass of port.

November’s edition of the fete featured the kind of social mixing that’s all too rare back on South Beach: The hypnotic percussion eventually gave way to a set from Jean P. Jam, who—again, unfortunate name aside—played the kind of glorious old-school skanking reggae you can’t even hear in Jamaica these days.

Underneath a burst of fireworks, toned Russian masseuses boogied past sun-baked local hippies, while a pair of Colombian party boys down from Brickell eyed a cluster of lithe women who were clearly debating whether to trade up from their all-American fishing-junket boyfriends. Beats a night at Mynt anytime.

The evening’s traditional emcee, Hubert Baudoin, owner of both restaurants as well as the nearby Moorings Village resort, was out of town, apparently driving a vintage troop-transport ship back from San Diego. And what on earth was his beach resort going to do with amphibious landing gear? Answered a cheery Pierre’s waiter: “Oh, we learned to stop asking Hubert that kind of question a long time ago.”

2. Miami Noir edited by Les Standiford
(Akashic Books)
In the introduction to Miami Noir, editor Les Standiford handily tackles the pulp-fiction question out-of-towners often pose when trying to wrap their heads around the ever growing sea of South Florida crime thrillers. “Why aren’t you writing novels of manners down there?” Standiford rhetorically mocks. “Drawing-room comedies? Something literary, for God’s sake?” The answer is simple: None of those forms have much to do with life in Miami today, a hustler-plagued terrain where, as Standiford sees it, “the novel of crime and punishment is the perfect vehicle to convey the spirit and timbre of this brawling place to a wider world.” For Miami Noir, he has corralled new short stories in that vein from a cast of the usual beloved local suspects, including James W. Hall, John Dufresne, Christine Kling and Vicki Hendricks, as well as unsung up-and-comers such as Jeffrey Wehr, David Beaty and John Bond. Expect Standiford and much of his collection’s crew to be on hand for an evening of readings on December 8th at Coral Gables’ Books & Books