Leonard Cohen went back on tour in his seventies because his manager took his money
In 2005 Leonard Cohen discovered that his manager had siphoned off most of his savings and sold his publishing rights. At an age when most singers retire, he went back on the road. The tours from 2008 to 2013 were a triumph, and three late albums followed, the last weeks before he died.
Cohen was born on September 21, 1934, into an Orthodox Jewish family in Westmount, Montreal's English-speaking enclave. His mother had come from Kaunas in Lithuania, the daughter of a rabbi and Talmudic writer; his paternal grandfather was founding president of the Canadian Jewish Congress. His father, who owned a clothing store, died when Leonard was nine. Told he descended from Aaron the high priest, he later called his childhood messianic.
Poetry came first. At school he fell for the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca, taught himself guitar and formed a country-folk group called the Buckskin Boys before a young Spanish guitarist showed him some flamenco. At McGill University, where the poet Irving Layton became his mentor and friend, he led the debating union and won a literary prize. His first collection, Let Us Compare Mythologies, appeared in 1956, drawing measured praise from the critic Northrop Frye. He spent the 1950s and early 1960s as a poet and novelist and only turned to music in 1966.
His debut album arrived in 1967, followed by spare folk records. In 1977 he worked with Phil Spector on a far busier sound, and Recent Songs in 1979 folded in jazz and Mediterranean touches. Hallelujah, now his best-known song, first appeared on Various Positions in 1984. I'm Your Man in 1988 brought synthesisers, and The Future in 1992 took on political and social unrest. His recurring subjects were faith and death, loneliness, betrayal, desire and loss.
Ten New Songs in 2001 was a big success in Canada and Europe. After the financial blow and the comeback tours came Old Ideas, Popular Problems and, in 2016, You Want It Darker, released three weeks before his death on November 7 that year; a final album came out in 2019. Honours included the Companion of the Order of Canada, a Prince of Asturias Award for literature in 2011 and induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Source: Leonard Cohen
