LOS ANGELES (AP) — Leonard Cohen, the singer-songwriter, canadian raspy voice, which he combined perfectly the spirituality and sexuality in hits like “Hallelujah”, “Suzanne” and “Bird on a Wire”, he passed away. She was 82 years old.
The seal of Cohen, confirmed his death Thursday in a statement posted on his page of Facebook. He said that a tribute would take place in Los Angeles later but provided no details on the death.
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Cohen, who is also a renowned poet, novelist and aspiring monk, gave the folk music a shade more dark and sexual that aroused admiration around the world and among musicians such as Bob Dylan and the group R. E. M.
remained popular as an octogenarian, going on tour as recently as early this year and launching a new album last month,
His song “Hallelujah” became a cult hit when it was performed by the musician Jeff Buckley in 1994, and has become a modern classic since then. Countless versions can be heard on YouTube, reality shows, and concerts by choirs of school.
Cohen, who once said that he got into music because I couldn’t make a living as a poet, gained prominence during the resurgence of folk music in the 60′s. During those years, he made the circuit of folk artists such as Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and Joan Baez, who changed the popular music of a dependent letters pop light to a with messages deeply personal.
His contemporary, Kris Kristofferson once said that she wanted the first lines of the song, Cohen’s “Bird on a Wire” are recorded on the headstone of his grave.
Would be a perfect epitaph for the same Cohen: “Like a bird on a wire, like a drunk in a midnight choir I have tried in my way to be free.”
Cohen never seemed very comfortable on stage, however, and she attributed it to was the oldest of the group. “I had at least 10 years older than the rest of them,” she told the Magazine, a supplement of the Spanish newspaper The World, in 2001.
Judy Collins, who scored a success with the subject of Cohen’s “Suzanne,” he once recalled that he was so shy that he retired to the half of their first public performance and she had to convince him to return to the stage.
as Dylan, didn’t have a voice polished but sounded with emotion, and with age, his serious baritone acquired even more power. In 1992, he won the Juno award vocalist of the year, the canadian equivalent of a Grammy. Although he never won a Grammy, Cohen received numerous recognitions, including being named a companion of the Order of Canada in 1991, the honor more important awarded to a civilian for his nation. In 2016, Dylan told The New Yorker that the best work of Cohen was “deep and true”, “multidimensional” and “surprisingly melodic.”
“When people talk about Leonard, not to mention his melodies, which for me, along with his letters, are his greatest genius,” said Dylan. “Even the lines of counterpoint — give him a character heavenly and a height of the melody to every one of their songs. As far as I know, nobody comes close to this in modern music”.
When Cohen was inducted into the Hall of Fame of Rock and Roll in 2008, told the hearing: “This time is very unusual for me. There is a distinction coveted or even I dared to dream.”
In songs like “Sisters of Mercy”, Cohen joined symbolism romantic with an orchestration minimalist to produce music that resonated with the authenticity of traditional folk. Many were dark, with black humor and social commentary sarcastic.
“Destroy another fetus now, we don’t like children anyway”, is one of the lines of its theme of “The Future”.
When asked once if he was a pessimist, he answered with his typical black humor.
“I don’t consider myself at all a pessimistic,” he told the London Daily Telegraph in 1993. “For me, a pessimist is a person who is waiting for rain. I’m completely soaked”.
Cohen suffered from depression throughout his life, sometimes tried to mitigate with drugs and alcohol.
When he gave his first concert in the united States in 15 years at the beginning of 2009, the musician then 74 years, he received countless standing ovations at a sold-out Beacon Theatre in New York.
“it Has been a long time since I stood on this stage,” he said. “I was 60 years old, he was just a kid with a crazy dream. Since then I’ve been taking a lot of Prozac”.
Born on 21 September 1934 in Montreal, Cohen formed a group of country music called the Buckskin Boys when I was a teenager.
he was Studying at McGill University when his book of poetry “Let Us Compare Mythologies”, was published in 1956 by generating great critical acclaim. It was followed by “The Spice-Box of Earth” in 1961. His first novel, “The Favourite Game”, came out in 1963.
Published several other poems in the 60′s while living on the Greek island of Hydra, and began to be noticed with its novel experimental “Beautiful Losers” in 1966 and his first album, “Songs of Leonard Cohen”, in 1968.
“Leonard Cohen seems to be to the point of becoming a major spokesman of the old pilgrims of his generation,” wrote the New York Times in 1968. Cohen told the interviewer from the Times: “I don’t even think of myself as a writer, singer or whatever. The occupation of being a man is much more than that.”
In total, he published more than a dozen novels and books of poetry and recorded almost a dozen albums.
Born in the womb of a jewish family, Cohen was considered to be both jewish and buddhist.
biblical References are heard in many of his songs. Part of the lyrics of “Suzanne”, for example, says: “And Jesus was a sailor when he walked upon the water”. The love song “Hallelujah”, which was used in the tape Disney animated “Shrek”, made references to the biblical stories of Samson and King David and Bathsheba.
For decades, Cohen was a pupil and friend of Joshu Sasaki Roshi, a Zen buddhist monk, and from 1994 to 1999 he lived as a disciple of Roshi in the Center Mount Baldy Zen in Los Angeles.
he Said that he did not understand completely the buddhist concepts, but that the retreat and his hard work had given him a better sense in the staff.
“I was the cook up there,” she told the Magazine. “My life was full of disorder, of chaos, and there I managed some discipline. So I decided to go back to the music.”
he Continued writing and producing albums, and books.
In 2006, Cohen won a lawsuit against his exmanager, Kelley Lynch, whom he accused of having stolen more than $ 5 million of his retirement while he was in detention at the Zen center. We left a cushion of about $ 150,000, alleged in their lawsuit.
It was awarded $ 9.5 million, but could never cash them in. Went back out on tour in 2008-09, in part, by their financial losses, and told the New York Times, and that theirs was “a problem long and continuous indifference disastrous and unforgiving of my financial situation.
I didn’t even knew where was the bank”.
Cohen was never married, but had two children, Adam and Lorca, with the artist Suzanne Elrod.
he was Also linked romantically with actress Rebecca De Mornay and jazz singer Anjani Thomas, who sang on several of his albums.
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