Cohen, Leonard

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Leonard Cohen

Singer, songwriter, guitarist

Multi-talented folksinger-songwriter Leonard Cohen was already a well-respected Canadian poet and novelist when he began penning tunes for folk star Judy Collins. Shortly afterwards, he started recording and performing his own lyrics and melodies successfully, though he is perhaps best known through the vocalizations of Collins and other singers, including Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes. Responsible for folk classics such as “Sisters of Mercy” and “Bird on a Wire,” Cohen, with what critic David Browne labeled as his “sardonic verse and brooding demeanor,” has influenced many late 1980s singer-songwriters, including Suzanne Vega, in addition to continuing his own career with the 1988 album I’m Your Man.

Cohen was born September 21, 1934, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Music was not his first love; rather, he began writing poetry and fiction as a teenager. But he had a friend whose father played guitar and sang folk songs to the boys; this man taught Cohen to play the instrument. Also, while the young writer worked towards a degree at McGill University, he played in an amateur country band called the Buckskin Boys. After he graduated from college, his first volume of poetry, Let Us Compare Mythologies, was published. Within a few years Cohen’s verses had received wide critical acclaim, both in his native land and in the United States. He traveled both countries giving poetry readings during the late 1950s, and at these readings he was often accompanied by a musician who played while Cohen read. This reawakened the poet’s interest in music, and he began playing the guitar and singing again for groups of friends.

By 1966 Cohen had published three more volumes of poetry and two novels, The Favorite Game and Beautiful Losers. Both eventually became best-sellers, with The Favorite Game achieving something of a cult following. But 1966 was the year that Cohen would begin focusing on his music. While doing a poetry reading in New York City, he was approached by the Columbia Broadcasting System which wanted him to appear in a television program based on his readings. They also wanted musical interludes. At the same time, Cohen went to see Judy Collins in concert; her performance inspired him to begin writing his own folk songs.

Collins liked his compositions, and she included two of them—“Suzanne” and “Dress Rehearsal Rag”—on her 1967 album In My Life. Other artists began to use Cohen’s songs, and his friends persuaded him to begin performing them himself. Cohen did so, and his act met with warm receptions at the Newport Folk Festival, the Rheingold Music Festival, and Montreal’s Expo ’67. He also landed a recording contract with Columbia Records, and released his debut album, Songs of Leonard

For the Record…

Full name, Leonard Norman Cohen; born September 21, 1934, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Education: McGill University, B.A., 1955; graduate study at Columbia University.

Poet and novelist during the late 1950s and early 1960s; composer of folk songs, 1966—; recording artist and concert performer, 1967—; composer of film scores, including “The Angel,” “The Ernie Game,” and “McCabe and Mrs. Miller.”

Awards: McGill Literary Award, 1956; Canada Council Grant, 1960–61; Quebec Literary Award, 1964; Honorary L.L.B., Dalhousie University, 1971.

Addresses: Record company —Columbia/CBS Records, 51 W. 52nd St., New York, N.Y. 10019. Other-c/o McClelland and Stewart Ltd., 25 Hollinger Rd., Toronto, Ontario, M4B 3G2, Canada.

Cohen, very late in 1967. Well received by most critics, it was later used as the soundtrack for the film McCabe and Mrs. Miller. In addition to his own version of “Suzanne,” the album included the Cohen trademark songs “Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye” and “Sisters of Mercy.”

Cohen followed his debut effort with Songs from a Room in 1969; it featured what is perhaps Cohen’s best-known song, “Bird on the Wire.” A long string of critically successful albums ensued; one of the most popular was 1971 ’s Songs of Love and Hate. Throughout the 1970s Cohen composed and released several songs that have become folk standards, including “Joan of Arc,” “Famous Blue Raincoat,” “Story of Isaac,” “Tonight Will Be Fine,” and “Please Don’t Pass Me By.”

In the later 1970s, Cohen left Columbia Records to work at Warner Brothers with famed rock producer-composer Phil Spector. Despite the two men’s widefy different styles, they produced an album which combined Cohen’s words and Spector’s music, 1977’s Death of a Ladies’ Man. Critical response was mixed, and ranged from execration to exaltation; the effort was extremely popular with fans in Europe but did not sell well in the United States. Two years later, Cohen went back to Columbia to release Recent Songs. On several tracks he sang duets with singer Jennifer Warnes, who also released an album of her versions of several Cohen standards, Famous Blue Raincoat.

For the next nine years, Cohen did not record on any major labels, though he did release an album in 1984 called Various Positions, which Browne described as centering on “Judeo-Christian imagery.” In 1988, however, I’m Your Man came out on Columbia. Cohen’s always deadpan delivery is “now so low it sounds as if it were about to fall off the record,” Browne quipped, but the Rolling Stone reviewer went on to praise several cuts on the album, including the title track, “First We Take Manhattan,” “Ain’t No Cure for Love,” “Tower of Song,” and “Everybody Knows.” Though he labeled I’m Your Man as “the first Cohen album that can be listened to during the daylight hours,” Browne concluded that because of the singer’s insightful social commentary, “there’s still absolutely nothing comforting about having Leonard Cohen around.”

Selected discography

Albums; released by Columbia except as indicated

Songs of Leonard Cohen (includes “Suzanne,” “Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye,” and “Sisters of Mercy”), 1967.

Songs from a Room (includes “Bird on a Wire” and “You Know Who I Am”), 1969.

Songs of Love and Hate (includes “Joan of Arc,” “Famous Blue Raincoat,” and “Dress Rehearsal Rag”), 1971.

Live Songs (includes “Story of Isaac,” “Nancy,” “Tonight Will Be Fine,” “Queen Victoria,” “Please Don’t Pass Me By,” and “Passin’ Thru”), 1973.

New Skin for the Old Ceremony, 1974.

Death of a Ladies’ Man, Warner Brothers, 1977.

Recent Songs, 1979.

I’m Your Man (includes “I’m Your Man,” “First We Take Manhattan,” “Ain’t No Cure for Love,” “Everybody Knows,” “Tower of Song,” and “I Can’t Forget”), 1988.