When I was in high school, I had a part time job at the local library. At that time, Cohen was known as a poet and there were books by him in the library. So not only a "musical" contribution to culture but also a literary one.
You beat me to Leonard. I also knew him as a poet when I was very young, probably not even pubescent, before his first album even came out. (Yes, of course I was a bookish kid, and a boho). He wrote a couple of novels as well, mixing historical-philosophical musings and wild sex, straight and gay, which I barely understood at 13 or so... (the sex, not the history). His early poems also expressed a Russian-Pale Jewish sensibity in what was then a profoundly Catholic (and priest-ridden) city. Bixa might have read Juan Gelman whose Buenos Aires poems sometimes had similar echoes, though they were more "social". Bixa and Don Cuevas might be familiar with Gelman as he lived in Mexico City in his later years, as it was one of his places of exile during the dictatorship and he found late love there.
I have met Cohen but can't say I "knew" him - I think most people here who are at all involved in literature, music or art have met him.
Cohen is deeply loved by francophone Québécois as well as anglophones and others. Unlike Mordechai Richler, he never expressed resentment towards the national and social aspirations of the Québécois - or the Indigenous peoples. He wasn't an activist, but had a deep sensitivity to "what's going on". There is a war between the rich and the poor, a war between the man and the woman. There is a war between those who say there is a war, and those who say there isn't.
The ecosocialist and indépendantiste sculptor and painter Armand Vaillancourt, not as well known as Cohen outside Québec, though he has major works in San Francisco and elsewhere, was one of his close friends. His wife at the time was Suzanne Verdal, the Suzanne of the song, which is an ode to Montréal. Perhaps strangely in those wild times, the love of Suzanne and Leonard was chaste and courtly. She was a dancer... she's not doing well these days, a bit more than "half-crazy" and no longer able to dance or teach dance...
Flags throughout the city are half-mast today; I imagine that there will be a public ceremony. People gathered in the little Parc du Portugal where his little house was located some sang - and drank wine - all hight - I confess I was too cold - I did drink some wine and listen to songs I listened to decades ago when I was a kid - by Cohen, sung also by Pauline Julien, his rendering of Anna Marly's Chanson du partisan...
And his recent, stark song "Almost like the blues"
Thank you for that commentary Lagatta and for the songs. My husband and I sat up late listening to his music and toasting him.
How very fitting that the flags are at half mast.
I have several of his books. He never did receive the acclaim as a writer that he deserved. Having read two biographies of him, he expressed much dismay at this and was often very discouraged.
Having seen him perform here in NOLA a few years ago was likely one of the highlights of my music loving history. His presence on the stage was enormous and he seemed to delight in all that surrounded him which came through loud and clear in his performance. He ended the concert with one of my many favorites," Closing Time". Ever so fitting a song for NOLAees.
The spontaneous memorial to Leonard Cohen outside his small greystone duplex, Parc du Portugal, Plateau Mont-Royal District, Montréal (photo by Le Devoir photographer Jacques Nadeau)
Leon Russell dies at age 74. He came to New Orleans and performed often. He was known to be a very generous musician, sharing the stage with others. RIP Leon.
Pierre Barouh has died at age 82. Non French people will probably not recognise the name but you will almost certainly recognise his signature song from the movie A Man and a Woman.
I heard that about an hour ago. While everybody knows that he was a musical legend, I suspect that the first reaction of a lot of people is going to be "I didn't know he was still alive."
Agreed yes. He was such a powerful influence upon so many musicians, the whole" British Wave", the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Kinks et al have declared how inspired they were by him.
No indeed! I well knew he was alive AND was set to release a new album this year. GIANT influence on the popular music of the last sixty-two years. (he recorded Maybelline in 1955)
Whether you're a fan or not, you have to admire his stamina:
Berry lived in Ladue, Missouri, approximately 10 miles (16 km) west of St. Louis.[62] He regularly performed one Wednesday each month at Blueberry Hill, a restaurant and bar located in the Delmar Loop neighborhood of St. Louis, from 1996 to 2014. Berry announced on his 90th birthday that his first new studio album since Rock It in 1979, entitled Chuck, would be released in 2017. His first new record in 38 years, it features his children, Charles Berry Jr. and Ingrid, on guitar and harmonica, with songs "covering the spectrum from hard-driving rockers to soulful thought-provoking time capsules of a life's work" and dedicated to his wife of 68 years, Themetta Berry.
The above is from the Chuck Berry Wikipedia entry which at this moment carries a disclaimer as to accuracy because of the high level of traffic on the page. That's a lotta fans over a lotta years!
Don't know if this link will work, but here's a song I can attest to its sing-along-ability. I remember a whole bar full of people singing lustily along with the jukebox circa 1973 in a Wisconsin tavern: