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Nov 30, 2016 · A fellow tenant of Cohen’s at the Chelsea Hotel – legendary archivist Harry Everett Smith, who compiled the hugely influential Anthology of American Folk Music – ran into Cohen one day at ...
Cohen pursued a career as a poet and novelist during the 1950s and early 1960s, and did not begin a music career until 1966. His first album, Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967), was followed by three more albums of folk music: Songs from a Room (1969), Songs of Love and Hate (1971) and New Skin for the Old Ceremony (1974).
- Who Was Leonard Cohen?
- Early Life and The Buckskin Boys
- Poetry and 'Beautiful Losers'
- New York City and Musical Success
- Struggles and "Hallelujah"
- 'I’m Your Man'
- Later Career and Death
Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen was a writer and guitarist from an early age. By the mid-1960s, Cohen began to compose and release folk-rock and pop songs. One of his most famous compositions is "Hallelujah," a song released on 1984's Various Positions. Cohen was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008, and he received a Gramm...
Cohen was born on September 21, 1934, in a suburb of Montreal, Canada. Part of an intellectual, middle-class Jewish family, he was encouraged by his parents to pursue his interests in poetry and music and was also thoroughly immersed in Jewish theology and the stories of the Old Testament. In many ways, these early interests and influences provided...
Around this time, Cohen briefly attended Columbia University before returning to Montreal, where he worked various jobs while continuing to write poetry. However, when his next book, The Spice-Box of the Earth, was published in 1961, it marked the beginning of what would be one of Cohen’s most fruitful periods. Both a critical and commercial succes...
Returning to the United States, Cohen settled in New York and began to explore the city’s music scene. By this time well into his 30s, Cohen was significantly older than his contemporaries and was on more than one occasion discouraged by agents from attempting a career as a performer. However, fellow folk singer Judy Collins had already recognized ...
In 1974, Cohen returned to studio recordings with New Skin for the Old Ceremony, which while maintaining Cohen’s characteristically downbeat mood also featured fuller arrangements than his previous albums. Among the standout tracks from this offering are “Who by Fire,” “Take This Longing” and “Chelsea Hotel No. 2,” about a romantic encounter that C...
Resurfacing in 1988, Cohen released the synth-heavy I’m Your Man, which although failed to chart in the United States, was a smash in Canada and Europe and features the notable tracks “Everybody Knows” and “First We Take Manhattan,” as well as the memorable title song. Introducing Cohen to a new generation of fans, the album was followed by 1992’s ...
In 2006, Cohen also published a new collection of poetry, Book of Longing, and in 2008, after being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, he embarked on a two-year-long world tour to rebuild his finances, which was chronicled on the albums Live in London (2009) and Songs from the Road (2010). In the midst of the tour, Cohen received a Gramm...
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Nov 11, 2016 · Over the years, Cohen’s music had shifted from its folk-based origins to something approaching electro-minimalism — simple keyboards, often synthesised percussion, typified by the...
- David Cheal
Nov 7, 2021 · The Sunday Magazine. How Leonard Cohen's hits were influenced by Christianity and Judaism. Cohen’s lyrics had deep roots in religion because of his upbringing, according to author Harry...
Apr 23, 2024 · Already established as a poet and novelist (his first book of poems, Let Us Compare Mythologies, was published in 1956), Cohen became interested in the Greenwich Village folk scene while living in New York City during the mid-1960s, and he began setting his poems to music.
Oct 21, 2016 · LEONARD COHEN: (Singing) If you are the dealer, I'm out of the game. If you are the healer, it means I'm broken and lame. If thine is the glory, then mine must be shame.
