{"id":82807,"date":"2016-11-11T07:25:31","date_gmt":"2016-11-11T12:25:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=82807"},"modified":"2016-11-11T07:25:31","modified_gmt":"2016-11-11T12:25:31","slug":"canadian-musical-icon-leonard-cohen-dead-age-82","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2016\/11\/11\/canadian-musical-icon-leonard-cohen-dead-age-82\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadian musical icon Leonard Cohen dead at the age of 82"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"090820<\/a><\/p>\n

MONTREAL\u2014Leonard Cohen \u2014 writer, poet, composer, singer, renowned seducer and, for many, the epitome of cool \u2014 has died at the age of 82.<\/p>\n

His sonorous, tobacco-painted baritone was once described as \u201cthe musical equivalent of rotgut whisky\u201d and his lyrics and texts relentlessly studied spirituality, sex, power and love.<\/p>\n

Just weeks ago Cohen released a new album, \u201cYou Want It Darker,\u201d produced in part by his son Adam. Cohen was still performing to sellout crowds and drawing new generations of fans at an age when most people would have settled back in their rocking chairs to reflect on their life’s accomplishments.<\/p>\n

Now all that’s left is his prodigious body of work, which includes the oft-covered \u201cHallelujah,\u201d which was sung by k.d. lang during the opening ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.<\/p>\n

Pointing to W.B. Yeats, Walt Whitman and Canadian poet Irving Layton among his literary influences, Cohen himself had fans among some of music’s top names, including U2, REM, Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan.<\/p>\n

In reviewing his 2008-10 world tour, Britain’s Independent newspaper declared that \u201cto hear him sing is still an experience to truly make young women and romantics shiver and sweat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cohen’s compositions endlessly entranced audiences, who usually treated the reclusive performer with awe. However, his poetic songs were far from being toe-tappers, with some clocking in at seven minutes long and dealing more in substance than sass.<\/p>\n

His songs prompted him to be dubbed the \u201cgodfather of gloom,\u201d the \u201cpoet laureate of pessimism,\u201d the \u201cgrocer of despair\u201d and the \u201cprince of bummers.\u201d One reviewer in the 1970s described his songs as \u201cmusic to slit your wrists to.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he was hailed for his intelligence, humility, curiosity and generosity, donating unpublished poems, poems-in-progress, drawings and archival material to a fan website where it could be enjoyed by followers.<\/p>\n

The 2003 Order of Canada inductee is said to have had a fantastic sense of humour and loved to crack jokes.<\/p>\n

He wasn’t averse to poking fun at himself, as he did before a sold-out crowd at Montreal’s Bell Centre during a 2012 concert.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes, I stumble out of bed, look at myself in the mirror and say to the mirror, ‘Lighten up, Cohen’,\u201d he said to laughter.<\/p>\n

Compared to some entertainers who march through their famous lives with brass-band personalities, Cohen glided along unassumingly, although any tidbit of news or sighting was almost treated with second coming-type excitement.<\/p>\n

He could show up in the darndest places other than the sun-drenched streets of Los Angeles, where he often recorded. Cohen was so taken with the Greek island of Hydra that he bought a house there in 1960 for $1,500 and lived in it even though it had no electricity or running water.<\/p>\n

He also stayed in a Zen Buddhist monastery on Mount Baldy near Los Angeles for five years and popped up in his Montreal hometown where he strolled around the city. The singer once left a TV reporter doing man-in-the-street interviews gobsmacked when the journalist unknowingly tapped him for an opinion. Cohen shyly declined.<\/p>\n

He also liked to slide into a booth at the fabled Montreal deli The Main for a smoked-meat sandwich.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lovely man,\u201d recalled Diane Bass, whose husband owns the restaurant.<\/p>\n

But the 2008 inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame struggled to define the location of the creative well that spawned his offerings.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I knew where the songs came from, I’d go there more often,\u201d he said in a 1992 interview with The Canadian Press.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people write great tunes in the back of taxicabs but it takes me endless amounts of writing and rewriting to come up with something I can wrap my voice around.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another time he compared it to being like a \u201cbear stumbling into a beehive.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ever-dapper Cohen, who favoured black suits, fedoras and tweed caps, was born in Montreal on Sept. 21, 1934, to a middle-class family. His father, who ran a well-known clothing store, died when he was nine.<\/p>\n

He pursued undergraduate studies at McGill University and became president of the debating union. He flirted with a legal career and attended McGill law school for a year after completing his bachelor’s degree. He also went to Columbia University for a year.<\/p>\n

But literature had a stronger call than litigation.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet Us Compare Mythologies,\u201d his first book of poetry, was published in 1956 when he was an undergrad. The \u201cFlowers For Hitler\u201d poetry collection and the novels \u201cThe Favourite Game\u201d and \u201cBeautiful Losers\u201d followed in the 1960s.<\/p>\n

But as eloquent as he could be on the printed page, establishing himself as a poet and novelist of renown by the age of 32, Cohen decided that songwriting might pay better.<\/p>\n

It was a career change that raised a few eyebrows and agents in New York reportedly asked him, \u201cAren’t you a little old for this game?\u201d<\/p>\n

It didn’t stop him.<\/p>\n

A big break came in 1966 when Judy Collins recorded his standard \u201cSuzanne,\u201d and he came out with his first album \u201cSongs of Leonard Cohen\u201d the same year.<\/p>\n

That was followed up with \u201cSongs from a Room\u201d in 1969, which included the popular \u201cBird on the Wire.\u201d<\/p>\n

He had a fairly steady output although his popularity dipped in the 1970s as disco, not doom, was deemed to be the treat for consumers’ ears. But Cohen began a comeback in 1984 with \u201cVarious Positions,\u201d which included \u201cHallelujah.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ironically, \u201cHallelujah,\u201d was on the only Cohen album ever rejected by his record company and was little noticed when it did come out on an independent label. But it has become modern standard after hundreds of cover versions, high-profile performances and use in TV and movie soundtracks.<\/p>\n

It’s played at weddings, funerals \u2014 including the 2011 state ceremony for then NDP leader Jack Layton \u2014 school concerts and religious services. It was repeatedly played on VH1 after the 9\/11 terrorist attacks and at a telethon for relief efforts after the Haitian earthquake in 2010.<\/p>\n

But the Grammy- and Juno-winning Cohen, who once played the head of Interpol in an episode of TV’s \u201cMiami Vice,\u201d seems to have been defined almost as much by his libido as his music and his words.<\/p>\n

Actress Anjelica Huston once summed him up as \u201cpart wolf and part angel.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDeath of a Ladies’ Man,\u201d a 1977 collaboration with Phil Spector and his famous \u201cwall of sound\u201d style, traded on Cohen’s love life, although the singer described the final product as \u201cgrotesque.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cohen was generally discreet about the women he dated, with the tally mainly being taken by the media.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never discuss my mistresses or my tailors,\u201d he told an interviewer, although he has broken that rule a few times, describing an encounter with Janis Joplin in the song \u201cChelsea Hotel No. 2.\u201d<\/p>\n

As well, one of his signature tunes, \u201cSuzanne\u201d is based on another lover he knew in Montreal.<\/p>\n

The 1991 Canadian Music Hall of Fame inductee’s love life served to fuel a standing quip in his hometown that his Montreal conquests alone could fill a small phone book. His prowess even rated a tip of the hat in Rolling Stone magazine’s 2004 album guide.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor all his poetic angst and folkie sorrow, Cohen could never hide the fact that he was getting more rock-star booty than any other Canadian, before or since,\u201d wrote Rob Sheffield.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhispering in his glamorously tattered voice, he still makes all his songs sound like sinful confidences shared over bottles of bloody-red wine.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the height of his popularity in France in the 1960s, it was said that if a French woman owned one album, it was likely to be by Cohen.<\/p>\n

But he dismissed it all with a resigned shrug.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one masters love and I don’t seem to ever master the song,\u201d he said. \u201cYou have to struggle with it, like it was the first time you ever did it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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