Recorded with vocalist Jennifer Warnes (who later cut the album Famous Blue Raincoat, a collection of Leonard Cohen compositions), Various Positions is a stunning return to form – Cohen's strongest work since New Skin for the Old Ceremony…
Given that Leonard Cohen's international concert tours of the late 2000s were prompted by the fact his former manager made off with his life's savings, only a curmudgeon would blame the man for trying to make the enterprise as profitable as possible. Roughly 14 months after releasing Live in London, which preserved Cohen's July 2008 performance at London's 02 Arena, the venerable singer and songwriter presented Songs from the Road, featuring 12 tunes from his 2008 and 2009 concert dates…
In May 2006, Leonard Cohen published his first collection of poetry in 22 years, Book of Longing, having previously used some of the material as songs on his most recent albums, Ten New Songs (2001) and Dear Heather (2004). The book touched on many of the themes he had explored throughout his writing career, including spirituality (he had spent part of his time between books as a postulant at a Buddhist monastery), eroticism, and self-deprecating humor. On June 1, 2007, at the Luminato Festival in Toronto, Ontario, composer Philip Glass premiered his song cycle based on Book of Longing, which is here given a two-CD recording. Cohen is present on the album speaking (not singing) some of his poems, and Glass also has set some of them to music, with singing by a soprano (Dominique Plaisant), a mezzo-soprano (Tara Hugo), a tenor (Will Erat), and a bass-baritone (Daniel Keeling).
Given that Leonard Cohen's international concert tours of the late 2000s were prompted by the fact his former manager made off with his life's savings, only a curmudgeon would blame the man for trying to make the enterprise as profitable as possible. Roughly 14 months after releasing Live in London, which preserved Cohen's July 2008 performance at London's 02 Arena, the venerable singer and songwriter presented Songs from the Road, featuring 12 tunes from his 2008 and 2009 concert dates. While Live in London captured the feel and flow of a single concert and featured most of Cohen's best-known songs, this set includes bits and pieces from 11 different shows…
Popular Problems is Leonard Cohen's thrilling new studio album, where he takes us down into the avenues of our dreams and sets a new tone and speed of hope and despair, grief and joy. Cohen here is an astonished lover rocking to the human condition as "the soul unfolds in the chambers of its longing." His legendary basso resonates as never before with a presence and urgency that arises from the very the depths of the heart. The clarity and strength of these nine hypnotic songs will have us singing them over and over.
Legendary singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen died on November 7, 2016, one day before the 2016 Presidential Election, but the world didn’t find out for several days after. On January 24, 2017 (shortly after the inauguration of Donald Trump and the succeeding Women’s March), New York City finally paid tribute to the Poet Prince of Montréal with a concert featuring dozens of singers, songwriters and musicians, including Richard Thompson, Josh Ritter, Will Sheff (Okkervil River), Amy Helm, Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth), Lenny Kaye (Patti Smith Group), Elvis Perkins, Holly Miranda, Joan As Police Woman, Delicate Steve, and many more. It was an evening the Village Voice called “a loving, thoughtful tribute to Cohen’s life in music and poetry.” The live album features highlight performances from this nearly three-hour marathon concert, which the Voice also hailed as a “carefully constructed, expertly structured production.”