| Name | Leonard Cohen |
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| Background | solo_singer |
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| Birth name | Leonard Norman Cohen |
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| Born | September 21, 1934Montreal, Quebec, Canada |
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| Instrument | Vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards, synthesizer |
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| Genre | Folk, folk rock, rock, spoken word |
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| Occupation | Musician, songwriter, poet, novelist |
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| Years active | 1956 - present |
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| Label | Columbia |
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Leonard Norman Cohen,
CC,
GOQ (born 21 September 1934) is a
Canadian singer-songwriter, musician, poet and novelist. Cohen published his first book of poetry in
Montreal in 1956 and his first novel in 1963. His work often explores religion, isolation, sexuality and interpersonal relationships. In 1996, Cohen was ordained as a
Rinzai Zen
Buddhist monk and took the
Dharma name
Jikan, meaning "silence". He served as personal assistant to
Kyozan Joshu Sasaki Roshi. He left Mount Baldy in 1999. Japanese songwriter and poet
Masato Tomobe stated he admires Cohen and this made him better recognized in Japan around this time.
2000s
Post-monastery records: Ten New Songs, Dear Heather and Anjani's Blue Alert
In 2001, following the five years' seclusion, Cohen returned to music with
Ten New Songs, featuring a heavy influence from producer and co-composer
Sharon Robinson. The album includes the song "Alexandra Leaving", a transformation of the poem "
The God Abandons Antony", by the Greek poet
Constantine P. Cavafy.
In October 2004, Cohen released Dear Heather, largely a musical collaboration with jazz chanteuse (and current romantic partner) Anjani Thomas, although Sharon Robinson returned to collaborate on three tracks (including a duet). As light as the previous album was dark, Dear Heather reflects Cohen's own change of mood - he has said in a number of interviews that his depression has lifted in recent years, which he attributed to Zen Buddhism. In an interview following his induction into the Canadian Songwriters' Hall of Fame, Cohen explained that the album was intended to be a kind of notebook or scrapbook of themes, and that a more formal record had been planned for release shortly afterwards, but that this was put on ice by his legal battles with his ex-manager.
Blue Alert, an album of songs co-written by Anjani and Cohen, was released on May 23, 2006 to positive reviews. Sung by Anjani, who according to one reviewer "...sounds like Cohen reincarnated as woman...though Cohen doesn't sing a note on the album, his voice permeates it like smoke." These events placed him in the public spotlight, including a cover feature on him with the headline "Devastated!" in Canada's Maclean's magazine. In March 2006, Cohen won the civil suit and was awarded US $9 million by a Los Angeles County superior court. Lynch, however, ignored the suit and did not respond to a subpoena issued for her financial records. As a result it has been widely reported that Cohen may never be able to collect the awarded amount. In 2007, U.S. District Judge Lewis T. Babcock dismissed a claim by Cohen for more than US $4.5 million against Colorado investment firm Agile Group, and in 2008 he dismissed a defamation suit that Agile Group filed against Cohen. Cohen has been under new management since April 2005.
Personal life
In the 1960s, during his stay at
Hydra, Cohen befriended the Scandinavian novelists
Axel Jensen and
Göran Tunström. He lived there with Axel's wife Marianne Jensen (now: Ihlen Stang) and their son Axel after they broke up. The song "
So Long, Marianne" is about her.
Cohen has been married once, to Los Angeles artist Suzanne Elrod in the 1970s. He has downplayed the marriage as an important relationship, and has said that "cowardice" and "fear" have prevented him from ever actually marrying. He had two children with Elrod: a son, Adam, born in 1972 and a daughter, Lorca, named after poet Federico García Lorca, born in 1974. Adam Cohen began a career as a singer-songwriter in the mid-1990s and fronts a band called Low Millions. Elrod took the cover photograph on Cohen's Live Songs album and is pictured on the cover of the Death of a Ladies' Man album.
Cohen and Elrod had split by 1979. "Suzanne", one of his best-known songs, refers to Suzanne Verdal, the former wife of his friend, the Québécois sculptor Armand Vaillancourt, rather than Elrod. In the 1990s, Cohen was romantically linked to actress Rebecca De Mornay.
Awards, titles and honours
In 1964, Cohen's first novel The Favourite Game won the Québec Literary Competition Prize (awarded 1923-70 by the Province of Québec). In 1968, Cohen refused a Governor General's Award (in category for English language poetry or drama) for Selected Poems 1956–1968. In 1970, Cohen received an honorary degree from Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada. In 1984, 1983 made-for-TV short musical film I am a Hotel, written by Cohen and based on his songs, won The Golden Rose, the main award at the international television festival Rose d'Or in Montreux. In 1985, Book of Mercy won the Canadian Author's Association Literary Award for Poetry. In 1986, Cohen and Lewis Furey won the Genie Award for Best Original Song (for "Angel Eyes" from Night Magic) . In 1988, CBS awarded Cohen with the Columbia Records Crystal Globe Award, reserved for artists who sell more than five million copies of an album in foreign territories (for I'm Your Man). In 1989, Cohen was nominated for Juno Awards as Canadian Entertainer of the Year and Male Vocalist of the Year. In 1991, Cohen was made Officer of the Order of Canada, inducted into the Juno/Canadian Music Hall of Fame, and nominated for a Juno Award for Songwriter of the Year. In 1992, Cohen received an honorary degree from McGill University, Montreal. In 1993, Cohen won the Juno Award for Male Vocalist of the Year. The video for Closing Time, directed by Curtis Wehrfritz, won for Best Video. He was also nominated as Producer of the Year (with co-producer Leanne Ungar, for Closing Time). In 1993, Cohen won the Governor General's Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement. In 1994, Cohen won the Juno Award for Songwriter of the Year and was nominated for the Juno Award for Album of the Year (for The Future). The video for The Future, directed by Curtis Wehrfritz, was nominated for Juno Award for Best Video. In 1996, he was ordained a Rinzai Buddhist monk. In 2001, Cohen received Nagroda Muzyczna Fryderyk, the annual Polish music award, for best foreign album (Ten New Songs). In 2002, Cohen (with Sharon Robinson) was nominated for Juno Award as Best Songwriter (for Boogie Street, In My Secret Life, and You Have Loved Enough). In 2002, Cohen's video In My Secret Life, directed by Floria Sigismondi, was nominated for the Juno Award as Best Video, his "Ten New Songs" was nominated for Best Pop Album, and he was nominated for Best Artist. In 2002, Cohen was awarded a SNEP Award for more than 100,000 copies sold of Ten New Songs in France. In 2003, Cohen was made a Companion of the
Order of Canada, Canada's highest civilian honour.
In 2004, Beautiful Losers was chosen for inclusion in Canada Reads 2005. In 2005, Cohen was included to the Canadian Folk Music Walk of Fame. In 2006, Cohen was inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2007, Cohen received a
Grammy for
Album of the Year as a featured artist on
Herbie Hancock's
. In 2008, Cohen was inducted into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2008, Cohen was made a Grand Officer of the
National Order of Quebec. In 2009 his album Live in London was Long Listed for the Polaris Music Prize
In 2010, Cohen received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2010, Cohen received the
Porin Award in
Croatia in category of foreign video programme, for his
Live in London DVD.
In 2010, Cohen was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Discography
Studio albums
Tribute albums
Many other cover albums have been recorded by many artists.
Hallelujah
In 1996,
John Cale's cover of this song first appears in the independent film
Basquiat.
John Cale also performed this song in the 2001
Dreamworks movie
Shrek. The cover when watching the actual movie was by John Cale, but the original soundtrack for the movie had a
Rufus Wainwright version. John Cale's version was also featured on the television series
Scrubs.
In 2004, fellow Canadian k.d. lang released the album Hymns of the 49th Parallel which featured Leonard's song Hallelujah. The critically acclaimed album rose to the number 2 position on the Canadian Albums Chart. She subsequently performed the song live, on February 12, 2010, at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver, Canada.
Jeff Buckley recorded one of the best-known versions of "Hallelujah" for his debut album Grace in 1994. to critical acclaim. It was used during the final minutes of the West Wing episode Posse Comitatus, the last episode of season 3. On March 7, 2008, Jeff Buckley's version of Cohen's "Hallelujah", went to number 1 on the iTunes chart after Jason Castro performed the song on the seventh season of the television series American Idol. Another major boost for Cohen's song exposure came when singer-songwriter Kate Voegele released her version of "Hallelujah" from her 2007 album Don't Look Away and appeared as a regular character, named Mia, on season five of the teenage television show One Tree Hill.
In December 2008, two versions of "Hallelujah" placed No. 1 and 2 in the UK Christmas singles chart, with X Factor winner Alexandra Burke at No. 1 and Jeff Buckley at No. 2, following a campaign by Buckley fans to get his version to no. 1 rather than the X Factor version. As a result, online downloads of Cohen's original version placed it at No. 36, 24 years after its initial release.
Books
Let Us Compare Mythologies (poetry) 1956 The Spice-Box of Earth (poetry) 1961 The Favourite Game (novel) 1963 Flowers for Hitler (poetry) 1964 Beautiful Losers (novel) 1966 Parasites of Heaven (poetry) 1966 Selected Poems 1956–1968 (poetry) 1968 The Energy of Slaves (poetry) 1972 Death of a Lady's Man (poetry and prose) 1978 Book of Mercy (prose, poetry, psalms) 1984 Stranger Music (selected poems and songs) 1993 Book of Longing (poetry, prose, drawings) 2006
Film and television
Cohen was the subject of the 1965 documentary
Ladies and Gentlemen... Mr. Leonard Cohen, directed by
Donald Brittain and
Don Owen and produced by the
National Film Board of Canada. This film, which pre-dates Cohen's career as a songwriter, explores his career as a well-known Canadian poet. Cohen also appeared in Owen's 1967 film
The Ernie Game, which was entered into the
18th Berlin International Film Festival.
Cohen's music also appeared the following year in the 1966 NFB animated short Angel. In 1968 Cohen performed on the BBC, both on the Julie Felix Show and in his own special, split into two thirty minute shows. The first clip still exists, while the second is only available as a bootleg CD.
Cohen makes a cameo appearance performing "The Stranger Song" in the Canadian film The Ernie Game (1968), which is based on the stories of Bernard Cole Spencer. Cohen's 1970 performance at the Isle of Wight Festival was filmed by Murray Lerner, but remained unreleased until 2009 when it was released as Leonard Cohen Live at the Isle of Wight 1970, and included Lerner's 2009 documentary material. Robert Altman's 1971 western
McCabe and Mrs. Miller used three Cohen songs on its soundtrack, as well the instrumental parts of The Stranger Song performed by Cohen. Multiple record singles were released during the film's distribution. In 1972, Cohen's European tour was filmed by British director
Tony Palmer; the re-edited material appeared in 1974 under the title
Bird On a Wire and exists only as a bootleg VHS tape. Palmer's authorised and restored film was released in 2010. In October 1979, Cohen recorded a show for German TV show
RockPop Special, available only as a bootleg. The show is often rebroadcasted by the German satellite TV channel 3Sat.
The Song Of Leonard Cohen, a 1980 documentary by Harry Rasky, featuring Irving Layton, includes highlights from Cohen's 1979 European tour and tracks from the LP Recent Songs. In 1983, Cohen wrote and starred in made-for-TV short musical film I am a Hotel, based on his songs. It won the Golden Rose award at the Rose d'Or television festival in Montreux in 1984. In 1985, Cohen co-wrote and co-composed Night Magic (starring Carole Laure) with fellow Quebecker, Lewis Furey. Cohen is subject of the BBC documentary
Songs from the Life of Leonard Cohen, filmed during his 1988 tour.
In 1988, Spanish TV station RTE televised the full version of Cohen's show in San Sebastian, May 20, later aired in number of European countries and still rerun on the Spanish TV. It remains the only completely televised Cohen show. In 1989, Cohen gave his first major performance on US television on
Austin City Limits (recorded in November 1988). He performed for the show again in July 1993. Both programs have been often rebroadcast by the PBS.
Cohen appeared as villain Francois Zolan in the "French Twist" episode of the American television series Miami Vice (season 2, episode 17), originally broadcast on February 21, 1986. Three of Cohen's songs from his album The Future ("Waiting for the Miracle", "Anthem", and "The Future") are used in Oliver Stone's 1994 film Natural Born Killers. Songs from this album have also appeared in the films Wonder Boys (2000), starring Michael Douglas and The Life of David Gale (2003), starring Kevin Spacey. In 1994, Cohen narrated NFB-produced documentary The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Cohen's years at the Mt. Baldy Zen Centre were the subject of 1997 French documentary Leonard Cohen: Spring 96 by Armelle Brusq, released on DVD in 2009. In 2001, Cohen's song Hallelujah was used on the soundtrack of Shrek, in a version by John Cale. The Favourite Game (Le Jeu de l'ange), based on his novel of the same title, was released in Canada in 2003. was released in 2006. It features a 2005 tribute concert to Cohen, "Came So Far For Beauty", held at the Sydney Opera House and produced by Hal Willner. The film, directed by Lian Lunson, has appearances by Nick Cave, Beth Orton, Antony of Antony and the Johnsons, Rufus and Martha Wainwright, and a performance of "Tower of Song" by Cohen and U2. The film also features Cohen recalling significant parts of his life and career. Cohen is the subject of a two-part documentary, Leonard Cohen: Under Review 1934-1977 (2007) and Leonard Cohen: Under Review 1978-2006 (2008), available separately on DVD. Some of Cohen's songs, including Who By Fire and I'm Your Man, were featured in the season 5 finale and season 6 premiere of Criminal Minds.
See also
Music of Canada List of Quebec musicians Music of Quebec Culture of Quebec List of people with depression
References
Further reading
Anthony Reynolds, Leonard Cohen, a remarkable life, Omnibus Press, 2010. Gilles Tordjman,
Leonard Cohen, Le Castor Astral, Paris, 2006. ISBN 978-2-85920-671-X Alberto Manzano,
Leonard Cohen, la biografía, Libros Cúpula, 2010.
External links
Official website The Leonard Cohen Files (extensive fansite run with Cohen's co-operation) Bird on a Wire: Tony Palmer's 1972 Concert Film (TCM Movie Morlocks)
Category:1934 births Category:Living people Category:Canadian buskers Category:Canadian folk singers Category:Canadian Jews Category:Ashkenazi Jews Category:Canadian Zen Buddhists Category:Canadian Music Hall of Fame inductees Category:Canadian novelists Category:Canadian poets Category:Canadian singer-songwriters Category:Canadian people of Lithuanian descent Category:Canadian people of Polish descent Category:Companions of the Order of Canada Category:Genie Award winners Category:Jewish composers and songwriters Category:Jewish poets Category:Jewish singers Category:Jewish writers Category:Juno Award winners Category:Grammy Award winners Category:McGill University alumni Category:Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees Category:People from Montreal Category:People from Westmount, Quebec Category:Writers from Quebec Category:Musicians from Quebec Category:Governor General's Award winning poets Category:Canadian male singers Category:Anglophone Quebec people Category:Grand Officers of the National Order of Quebec Category:Western mystics Category:Jewish Canadian culture Category:People of Jewish descent Category:Former Scientologists
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