Leonard Cohen Brings World Tour to North America : May 03, 2012

Earlier this year, Leonard Cohen announced the first dates of his upcoming world tour, though they included no North American dates. The native Canadian singer/songwriter [...]

Leonard Cohen Reveals First Dates of 2012 World Tour : March 26, 2012

Leonard Cohen has announced the first dates of an upcoming Old Ideas World Tour 2012. The initial slew of dates are exclusively in Europe, but a press release posted t [...]

Album Review: Leonard Cohen ‘Old Ideas’ : March 16, 2012

It has been eight years since Leonard Cohen’s previous album, and 45 years since his first release back in 1967. In all of that time not a whole lot has changed for the [...]

Leonard Cohen to Release New Album ‘Old Ideas’ January 31 : November 22, 2011

Canadian troubadour Leonard Cohen will release his twelfth studio album, Old Ideas, on January 31, 2012. The record will be his first studio release since 2004’s Dear H [...]

Leonard Cohen Queues Up Last Four US Dates of Two Year Tour : September 18, 2010

Canadian folk-pop legend Leonard Cohen will finally wrap up his world tour which has been going on for more than two years now, this year in Sin City. According to AEG [...]

Leonard Cohen Fuels Tour for Another US Leg : July 22, 2009

Its been 15 long years since Leonard Cohen toured the US and evidently now that he's gotten a taste for it, he can't stop. Cohen will set out on a second leg of shows sta [...]

leonard cohen Biography

Leonard Cohen is not only an acclaimed literary artist, but an institution in the realm of poetry and songwriting. Born on September 21, 1934 in Montreal, Quebec, Cohen was born to Jewish parents and was raised with strong Messianic Jewish values, which became very apparent in his literary works, both poetic and musical. In his career that has so far spanned more than 40 years, his works constantly made references to political uprisings, especially those that involved the Jews such as the Arab-Israeli War and the Yom-Kippur War. He usually employed satire and dark humor to create a balance between his emotional and intricately thought verses and his own brand of expressionism. Towards the turn of the millennium and thanks to Zen-Buddhism, the mood of his works shifted from being serious and highly reflective, to being more assimilating and benevolent, but still critical and keenly observant of his surroundings and day-to-day happenings.

As a poet, he attributes Federico Garcia Lorca as his first and one of his biggest literary influences. He started to write poetry as a high school student in Westmount High, but it wasn’t until attending McGill University that his poetic talent was fully realized and appreciated by his contemporaries and seasoned writers. Apart from Lorca, Cohen’s literary influences expanded to include Walt Whitman, William Butler Yeats, Henry Miller and Irving Layton. In 1951, ‘Thoughts of a Landsman’, his four-poem series which was published during his time in the university, earned him a Chester MacNaughton Prize for Creative Writing. Five years later and a year after graduating from McGill University with a Bachelor in Arts degree, he published his first book of poems, ‘Let Us Compare Mythologies’ through his academic mentor Louis Dudek. The book, which he wrote during his high school and early college years which was also dedicated to his father Nathan Cohen, was the flagship piece of the McGill Poetry Series.

In 1961, he released ‘The Spice-Box of Earth’, his first mainstream work under the publishing house of McClelland & Stewart. ‘Spice-Box’ widened Cohen’s audience reach and propelled him to a stature that acclaimed editor and literary critic Robert Weaver described as being “the best young poet in English Canada right now”. Throughout the decade, Cohen lived in the Greek island Hydra, where he penned the 1964 poem collection ‘Flowers for Hitler’ and two of his first novels, the coming-of-age ‘The Favourite Game’ in 1963 and the highly provocative and somewhat controversial at the time, 1966’s ‘Beautiful Losers’. In the same year, he published another poetry collection entitled ‘Parasites of Heaven’, which would be his last published work in a long time. It would take him more than a decade to release his subsequent and one of his most remembered and influential written works, the poetry and prose collection ‘Death of a Lady’s Man’ (1978) and another six years thereafter to release the spiritual poetic prose ‘Book of Mercy’ (1984). ‘Mercy’, which earned Cohen the Canadian Author’s Association Literary Award for Poetry, took so much inspiration from the Torah, the Bible and Zen-Buddhism teachings, as such, he calls the collection as “prayers”.

In the succeeding two decades, Cohen would only release in print two literary works, 1993’s ‘Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs’ and 2006’s much-anticipated and long-delayed ‘Book of Longing’. During his quiescence from mainstream media between the 1990s and 2000s, he used the internet, particularly his official fan website, The Leonard Cohen Files, as a tool for his written works, entirely bypassing the control of publishing houses and releasing his pieces virtually instead.

During the wide gaps between his poetry releases, Cohen also dabbled onto recording, a career which would spawn legendary and widely covered folk-rock and spiritual songs like ‘Hallelujah’. His debut release, the simply titled ‘Songs of Leonard Cohen’, came out in 1967 and was produced by John Simon under Columbia Records. It has been said that Cohen and Simon had a dispute with the creative and technical direction the album was supposed to go, but despite the clash between the two, the set became a hit at the time, charting notably in the UK and the US for more than a year and with several of its tracks covered by other folk-rock artists such as James Taylor and Judy Collins, whose rendition of Cohen’s ‘Suzanne’ also became a fan and radio favorite at the time. In his two succeeding records, 1969’s ‘Songs from a Room’ and 1970’s ‘Songs of Love and Hate’, Cohen, with the help of highly distinguished Nashville-based producer Ben Johnston, achieved the creative control he sought for, thus, both albums had a spare sound apart from its original arrangements.

The rest of the ‘70s saw the release of four more albums from Cohen, the critically acclaimed ‘New Skin for the Old Ceremony’ in 1975, which featured collaborations and arrangements from pianist John Lissauer; a ‘Best of’ set, which came out also in the same year; the experimental and quite controversial ‘Death of a Ladies’ Man’ in 1977, for which Cohen worked closely - but not without conflict –with the notorious Phil Spector; and 1979’s ‘Recent Songs’, which featured Cohen’s more familiar and trademark sound with only subtle but sublime outside influences such as the calming Oriental and vivid Mediterranean harmonies.

‘Death of a Ladies’ Man’ came to public infamy because of its somewhat interesting and intriguing back story. Spector was the pioneer of the “Wall of Sound” technique which features acoustic and electric guitars playing the same chords and tabs simultaneously, creating a unified but multi-layered and multi-textured sound frequently employed in pop and rock music. The technique is in stark contrast to Cohen’s traditional and simplistic melodies created from plain acoustics. Apparently, Spector toyed with the album in a separate studio without Cohen’s knowledge, employing his technique in the process. When Cohen found out about it, he was enraged and was allegedly threatened by Spector with a crossbow. The former cringed at the end result, calling it “grotesque”, but reserving further harsh criticism in the end by saying that it was also “semi-virtuous”. Its 1977 release was under Warner Records which was owned by Spector, but he returned the rights to Cohen in the ‘80s, but the singer/songwriter declined to partake in any promotional effort for the release as well as to include any song from the set to his would-be compilations (‘More Best of Leonard Cohen’ and ‘The Essential Leonard Cohen’) and to perform any track from the album in his live shows, except for the songs ‘Memories’ and ‘Iodine’.

Cohen’s 1984 release ‘Various Positions’ saw the collaborative reunion between him and John Lissauer after almost ten years. The release featured unforgettable tracks such as ‘Dance Me to the End of Love’, the video for which was Cohen’s first and was shot by one of his ex-lovers Dominique Issermann, and ‘Hallelujah’, which has been covered and performed in different languages by more than 200 artists worldwide. ‘I’m Your Man’, released in 1988 and self-produced by Cohen, was similar to ‘Death of a Ladies’ Man’ in that it once again featured experimental sounds, with Cohen incorporating synthesizers in almost every track. The creative gamble, along with his satiric and socially charged lyrics, paid off as the album went on to be one of his most acclaimed to date. The album also featured a collaboration with former back-up vocalist and would-be constant producer and co-songwriter Sharon Robinson for the track ‘Everybody Knows’, which helped Cohen gain appreciation and recognition from a wider and much younger audience.

The hopeful yet somewhat gloomy tone of ‘The Future’ made its way to stores and in Cohen’s catalogue in 1992. Inspired by biblical revelations and prophecies, the album, which was of its time with its references to the prevalent worldwide political and social strife, clearly sends the message of hope, optimism and change despite the turbulences of the present and the uncertainties of the future. Five years later, Cohen released another compilation set aptly titled, ‘More Best of Leonard Cohen’, featuring two never-before-released tracks, ‘The Great Event’ and ‘Never Any Good’. ‘Ten New Songs’ (2001), Cohen’s first release for the new millennium, featured more collaborations with Robinson, who also co-produced the album. Her work and influence was also apparent in Cohen’s 2004 release ‘Dear Heather’, an album which symbolizes the shift in the poet/songwriter’s perspective and theme, from melancholic reflections to more uplifting and tranquil thoughts, taking substantial lessons from Zen-Buddhism. It is also Cohen’s first album to feature the voice of his longtime and current better half, jazz singer Anjani Thomas. In 2006, Cohen and Thomas married their musical geniuses once more, lyrically this time, for the album ‘Blue Alert’, which earned mostly rave reviews. Thomas was the sole vocalist in the record but Cohen’s presence, through his lyrics and his unheard voice which according to one review “permeates it like smoke”, was more than perceptible. In the same year, Cohen worked with American classical music composer Philip Glass for ‘Book of Longing. A Song Cycle based on the Poetry and Artwork of Leonard Cohen’. Glass composed songs using verses from Cohen’s poems included in 2006’s ‘Book of Longing’ and the album featured Glass on keyboards and piano, Cohen on spoken vocals plus four other classical singers in the soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor and bass-baritone ranges. His latest release, ‘Old Ideas’ produced by Ed Sanders, is set to hit the shelves on January 31, 2012.

Cohen’s songs have also made the silver screen crossover by being featured as themes for various films. In 1971, filmmaker Robert Altman borrowed tunes from Cohen’s debut release to be featured in ‘McCabe & Mrs. Miller’. The song ‘Everybody Knows’ was used in two films in the ‘90s, ‘Pump Up the Volume’ (1991) and the Canadian film ‘Exotica’ (1994). From the 1992 album ‘The Future’, three songs were featured in the hit film ‘Natural Born Killers’, the title track, ‘Anthem’ and ‘Waiting for the Miracle’.

The poet Federico Garcia Lorca was indeed a huge influence on Cohen as he named his daughter, Lorca, after him. Lorca, an artist just like her father whose medium of choice is photography and film, was born in 1974. She has a brother, Adam, who is two years her senior. Both are Cohen’s children to Suzanne Elrod, an artist with whom he had a long relationship during the ‘70s. Elrod was succeeded by French photographer and director Dominique Issermann. Issermann and Cohen dated during the ‘80s, where not only did she film two of Cohen’s first music videos, ‘Dance Me to the End of Love’ and ‘First We Take Manhattan’, but also took photos of the singer during his various live shows and world tours, several of which make up the bulk of his merchandise. It seemed that Cohen was seriously linked to one woman every decade as come the ‘90s, he was then linked to Rebecca De Mornay, an actress who also co-produced 1992’s ‘The Future’. Right around the start of the new millennium, Cohen and Anjani Thomas began what seems like the former’s last serious romantic, and also professional and artistic, relationship.

To date, Cohen has been honored as a member of the Order of Canada, the country’s highest civilian merit, and the National Order of Quebec. He has also been invested into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame. He was also recently awarded with the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature in 2011.