Cat Power – Stage Name Origins

Not surprisingly, the indie rocker known as Cat Power hasn't always had the name. Born Charlyn Marie Marshall, the singer (also known as Chan Marshall) left home at 18 and moved in with some friends in Atlanta, Ga., where she began playing music with a loose collective that needed a band name after booking a local club gig. Marshall was working at a pizzeria at the time, and when a man walked in wearing a Caterpillar trucker cap that read "Cat Diesel Power," she knew she had it. Within two years she had moved to New York, and the Cat Power moniker stuck.