Singer Leonard Cohen dies aged 82

[webfact]

Singer-Songwriter and poet Leonard Cohen dead at age 82 
ANDREW DALTON, Associated Press Writer
ROBERT JABLON, Associated Press Writer

 

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Leonard Cohen, the baritone-voiced Canadian singer-songwriter who seamlessly blended spirituality and sexuality in songs like "Hallelujah," ''Suzanne" and "Bird on a Wire," has died at age 82.

 

Cohen passed away and a memorial will take place in Los Angeles at a later date, Catherine McNelly, a representative from his record label, said Thursday. No further details on his death were given.

 

Cohen, also renowned as a poet, novelist and aspiring Zen monk, blended folk music with a darker, sexual edge that won him fans around the world and among fellow musicians like Bob Dylan and R.E.M.

 

He remained wildly popular into his 80s, when his deep voice plunged to seriously gravelly depths. He toured as recently as earlier this year and released a new album, "You Want it Darker," just last month.

 

His "Hallelujah" went from cult hit to modern standard, now an unending staple on movies, TV shows, YouTube videos, reality shows and high school choir concerts.

 

Cohen, who once said he got into music because he couldn't make a living as a poet, rose to prominence during the folk music revival of the 1960s. During those years, he traveled the folk circuit with younger artists like Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez and others.

 

His contemporary Kris Kristofferson once said that he wanted the opening lines to Cohen's "Bird on a Wire," on his tombstone.

They would be a perfect epitaph for Cohen himself: "Like a bird on a wire, like a drunk in a midnight choir, I have tried in my way to be free."

 

"Hamilton" star and creator Lin-Manuel Miranda quoted those lines on Twitter Thursday night as one of many paying tribute to Cohen.

 

The Montreal-born Cohen never seemed quite as comfortable on stage, however, and he chalked it up in part to being the old man among the group. "I was at least 10 years older than the rest of them," he told Magazine, a supplement to the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, in 2001.

 

Judy Collins, who had a hit with Cohen's song "Suzanne," once recalled he was so shy that he quit halfway through his first public performance of it and she had to coax him back onstage.

 

Like Dylan, his voice lacked polish but rang with emotion.

 

In 2016, Dylan told The New Yorker that Cohen's best work was "deep and truthful, "multidimensional" and "surprisingly melodic."

 

"When people talk about Leonard, they fail to mention his melodies, which to me, along with his lyrics, are his greatest genius," Dylan said. "Even the counterpoint lines — they give a celestial character and melodic lift to every one of his songs. As far as I know, no one else comes close to this in modern music."

 

It was Dylan who first recognized the potential of 1984's "Hallelujah, performing it twice in concert during the mid-1980s, once in Cohen's native Canada.

 

It had gone unnoticed when it came out on an independent-label album that had been rejected by Cohen's label. He had filled a notebook with some 80 verses before recording the song, which he said despite its religious references to David, Bathseba and Samson was an attempt to give a nonreligious context to hallelujah, an expression of praise.

 

Cohen recorded four verses, but he sent several more to John Cale, a founding Velvet Underground member who recorded "Hallelujah" for a 1991 tribute album.

 

It's the Cale version that has become the standard and was used by its most celebrated singer, the late Jeff Buckley, whose 1994 recording really began the launch of the song as cultural phenomenon.

 

Cohen was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008, telling the audience: "This is a very unlikely occasion for me. It is not a distinction that I coveted or even dared dream about."

 

In songs such as "Sisters of Mercy," Cohen melded romantic imagery with minimal orchestration to produce music that rang with the authenticity of traditional folk songs. Many had a dark mood, featuring black humor or sardonic social commentary.

 

"Destroy another fetus now, We don't like children anyhow," was one of the lines from his song "The Future."

 

Once asked if he was a pessimist, he responded with typical dark humor.

 

"I don't consider myself a pessimist at all,' he told the London Daily Telegraph in 1993. "I think of a pessimist as someone who is waiting for it to rain. And I feel completely soaked to the skin."

 

Cohen suffered bouts of depression throughout his life that he sometimes tried to mitigate with alcohol and drugs.

 

When he gave his first U.S. concert in 15 years in early 2009, the 74-year-old received countless standing ovations from the sold-out crowd at New York's Beacon Theatre.

 

"It's been a long time since I stood up on this stage in New York City," Cohen said. "I was 60 years old, just a kid with a crazy dream. Since then I've taken a lot of Prozac."

 

Born Sept. 21, 1934, he formed a country music group called the Buckskin Boys while still in his teens.

 

He was attending McGill University when his poetry book, "Let Us Compare Mythologies," was published in 1956 to critical acclaim. It was followed by "The Spice-Box of Earth" in 1961. His first novel, "The Favourite Game," came out in 1963.

 

He published several more poetry collections while living on the Greek island of Hydra in the 1960s and began to get wide notice with his experimental novel "Beautiful Losers" in 1966 and his first album, "Songs of Leonard Cohen," in 1968.

 

"Leonard Cohen seems on the verge of becoming a major spokesman for the aging pilgrims of his generation," The New York Times wrote in 1968. He told the Times interviewer: "I don't even think of myself as a writer, singer or whatever. The occupation of being a man is so much more."

 

In all, he published more than a dozen novels and books of poetry and recorded nearly two dozen albums.

 

Born to a Jewish family, Cohen considered himself both a Jew and a Buddhist.

 

For decades, Cohen was a student and friend of Joshu Sasaki Roshi, a Zen Buddhist monk, and from 1994 to 1999 he lived as a disciple of Roshi's at the Mount Baldy Zen Center in Los Angeles.

 

He claimed not to fully understand Buddhist concepts, but he said the retreat and its hard work gave him a better sense of himself.

 

"I was the cook up there," he told Magazine. "My life was filled with great disorder, with chaos, and I achieved a little discipline there. So I decided to return to music."

 

He continued to write and produce albums and books.

 

Cohen never married but he had two children, Adam and Lorca, with artist Suzanne Elrod.

 

He never won a Grammy, but he won countless other awards, including being named a companion of the Order of Canada in 1991, his native country's highest civilian honor.

 

"No other artist's music felt or sounded like Leonard Cohen's," Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted Thursday. "Yet his work resonated across generations. Canada and the world will miss him."

 

One of Cohen's most beloved hits was 1967's "So Long Marianne," written for a former girlfriend and longtime friend Marianne Ihlen, who also inspired his song "Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye."

 

In late July of this year, Cohen received an email from a friend of Ihlen's that she was suffering from cancer, the New Yorker reported last month. Cohen wrote her a letter that read:

"Well Marianne, it's come to this time when we are really so old and our bodies are falling apart and I think I will follow you very soon. Know that I am so close behind you that if you stretch out your hand, I think you can reach mine."

 

Ihlen received the letter two days before her death.

___

Associated Press music writer Mesfin Fekadu contributed to this report from New York.

 

-- © Associated Press 2016-11-11

[webfact]

Leonard Cohen dies aged 82

Stephanie Convery

 

Singer songwriter has passed away according to his official Facebook page

 

A post to his official Facebook page today announced the musician’s passing.

 

“It is with profound sorrow we report that legendary poet, songwriter and artist, Leonard Cohen has passed away. We have lost one of music’s most revered and prolific visionaries,” the post said.

 

Full story: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/nov/11/leonard-cohen-dies-aged-82

 

-- The Guardian 2016-11-11

[webfact]

Singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen dead at 82

News confirmed by his record label and Facebook fan page

 

Leonard Cohen has died at the age of 82. (Facebook)

 

Legendary Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen has died at the age of 82, according to a Facebook post on his official fan page. His music label Sony Music Canada has also confirmed the news.

 

 

 

 Follow

Sony Music Canada 

 

✔@Sony_Music

The Sony Music Canada family joins the world in mourning Leonard Cohen’s passing.

8:36 AM - 11 Nov 2016

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   4949 Retweets
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   2929 likes

 

 

"We have lost one of music's most revered and prolific visionaries," said the post on the Facebook page.

Full story: http://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/leonard-cohen-dead-1.3846669

-- CBCnews 2016-11-11

 

[optad]

Very sad. An unforgettable voice and lyricist.

 

Thanks Leonard for the songs! 

[LannaGuy]

we all have to go but sorry to hear this and thank you for the music

[Sandy Freckle]

RIP Leonard Cohen 

[sanuk711]

Not life of the party stuff---

My Ex used to say it was just music to slash your wrist's by...

.

but some times that's the mood your in......RIP

 

I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel,
you were talking so brave and so sweet,
giving me head on the unmade bed,
while the limousines wait in the street.

[Naam]

farewell Leonard, unforgotten by my generation.

[i claudius]

I loved his music , songs to commit suicide by , but great all the same , rip.

[Sirbergan]

A true Legend, producing quality music until his very last breath! RIP Mr. Cohen, thank you for your great work.

 

 

[nikmar]

He influenced many many musicians and I think "Halleluja" is o one of the most covered songs of all time. RIP Sir.

[Dexlowe]

Even during the wildest days of my youth, Cohen was always there in the background, providing a comforting dimension that I couldn't find in drugs and alcohol. He didn't provoke the morbid in me, just an intellectual release and an anchor. 

 

Rest in peace, Leonard. 

[Lite Beer]

A true genius. R.I.P.

[cmsally]

Thank you Leonard, for the songs and a voice that can take you right down to the bottom depths. Places you need to sometimes go to find what you are searching for.

 

Hope you find peace on your onward journey.

[optad]

4 hours ago, Dexlowe said:

Even during the wildest days of my youth, Cohen was always there in the background, providing a comforting dimension that I couldn't find in drugs and alcohol. He didn't provoke the morbid in me, just an intellectual release and an anchor. 

 

Rest in peace, Leonard. 

 

Evocative eulogy. Leonard  was about love and loss which we did experience intensely in those years you describe. 

 

Nice penmanship, dexlowe. Kinda summarized how i feel today. Cohen's loss really overshadows the politics of yesterday's turmoil. That settles. But given where leonard went with me in my formative years, he helped shape them, for the better  I hope. I took a hit today hearing Cohen's passing.

 

A gentle being. RIP.

[dunroaming]

Gutted.  Another hero gone!

[otherstuff1957]

I was just a kid when 'Suzanne' was popular.  Years late I rediscovered him with songs like this:

 

Edited November 11, 2016 by otherstuff1957
??? How do you embed a video now??

[ratcatcher]

For weeping Clinton fans and jubilant Trumpers, this is a good one..

 

 

Edited November 11, 2016 by ratcatcher

[cmsally]

 

It's 4 in the morning, the end of December ......

[bannork]

 

[ThaiFelix]

RIP dear Leonard, you will be sorely missed but your music will ensure you are never forgotten.

[melvinmelvin]

 

 

 

[Grouse]

Always sad when a musician goes.

 

However, I could not abide the songs

 

When I was a student in the '70s, you had to sit through this stuff in the girl's room. Worth it in the end....

[Prbkk]

3 great songs but  countless hours of the most God -awful crap.

[Scott]

A post containing a slur has been removed.  

[Thechook]

I must admit this is the first time I have ever heard of him.  

[MiKT]

So Long Marianne, fair-the-well Suzanne, like a bird on a wire, l have tried in my way to be free.

 

Thank You Leonard, thank you for music that still touches my soul after 50 years.

 

A true poet able to reach down into your heart and make you feel the pain and the love.

 

Genius, yes indeed Genius of the highest measure.

 

Very Sadly Missed, RIP  Leonard, RIP

 

[seedy]

Derogatory post - and Quoted Replies - Removed

[dick dasterdly]

On 11/11/2016 at 6:11 PM, ThaiFelix said:

RIP dear Leonard, you will be sorely missed but your music will ensure you are never forgotten.

I hope you're right, but Leonard Cohen was far from 'main stream' and largely introduced to others by those that knew (and liked) his music/lyrics.

 

Those few are shrinking every year/decade.

[Peterw42]

On 11/11/2016 at 10:54 AM, nikmar said:

He influenced many many musicians and I think "Halleluja" is o one of the most covered songs of all time. RIP Sir.

 

300 plus versions, I think this is one of the best