Leonard Cohen’s voice has been silenced

(Quebec) “It is with profound sadness that we announce that the poet, songwriter and legendary artist Leonard Cohen died. The music world has lost one of its most prolific and revered visionaries. “The announcement on the website of Montrealers 82 years shortly before 21h Thursday rushed to mourn the many followers of his art that transcends generations.

For the producer Michel Brazeau, who organized all Cohen shows in the capital, the announcement came as a blow. “You’re not serious? Another … It makes me as much pain as the death of David Bowie, “said the producer journalist Sun , who had just told him the death of the only Quebecer to have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Bowie as elsewhere, Cohen died shortly after launching a new album, the aptly named You Want It Darker , published on 21 October and on which the father had worked with his son Adam.

A ceremony will be held in Los Angeles, where Cohen lived for several years while maintaining a residence in Montreal in the coming days. The family said he hopes grieve in privacy.

first meeting

Mr. Brazeau recalls his first meeting with the author of Hallelujah and Suzanne , at the first sight he had arranged with him to the Grand Théâtre de Québec in the 80 “He was on stage at 20h and 7:55 p.m., he went for me and asked me to come with him in his dressing room, “says the producer.

“He told me he was stressed before going on stage and I would have to help. He said, “Sit down,” and he pulled out a bottle of tequila. He served us shooters and we drank … After three shooters each, he said he was ready to go on stage. He went there and gave a show memorable, “recalls Brazeau.

He also remembers having seen the poet with a deep voice and omnipresent fedora when he hosted his show at the Youth Pavilion in 2009. “He did not think the Youth Pavilion was adequate room for his show but it took him explain that there was no other room for 3,000 people in Quebec. Fortunately, the sound engineer had done a good job and yet we had got a good show. ”

financial woes

This tour was the first of Cohen after his ex-manager Kelley Lynch has driven a few years ago, several million. “Its monetary requirements were high, because he wanted to use this tour to bail out. So he had negotiated his cachet as a result, but worked well, it was a full house, “says Michel Brazeau.

This will keep the memory of a “gentleman”, a being friendly which was a lot of class, easy to approach and talk. “The last time I held one of his shows, it was the Coliseum in 2012. He was 78 years old, but he had given his maximum with more than three-hour show. I can tell you that no one could say he did not get value for money. ”

From music to poetry

Born into a Jewish family of the middle class in Westmount in 1934, Leonard Cohen began his studies at McGill University and it was there, in the 50s, he published his first poems.

He started in music in 1967, when he left for New York where he rubbed shoulders with members of the Velvet Underground and the German singer Nico and Andy Warhol. He launched that year his first album, Songs of Leonard Cohen , which contained two pieces that would become classics, Suzanne and So Long, Marianne .

He would then produce 13 more albums, including The Future in 1992, certified double platinum in Canada, and Old Ideas that reached the third position of the prestigious Billboard 200 in 2012. In 2010 he received a Grammy for stress his rich musical career, two years after entering the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame.

Love and melancholy

Known for his love songs to the melancholy poetry, Cohen also knew how to handle the sarcasm and humor. “My reputation ladies’ man was a joke that brought me to laugh bitterly during the 10,000 nights I spent alone,” he had already said.

Still, he was known to several romances, including with Suzanne Elrod, who is the mother of his son Adam and his daughter Lorca, Rebecca American actress De Mornay and Marianne Ihlen, who was his muse for many years and died this summer. More recently, he also attended some of its singers including Laura Branigan, Sharon Robinson, Anjani Thomas and Jennifer Warnes.

The artist had a long break in his career in the 90s when he had taken refuge in the Zen Buddhist center of Mount Baldy, near Los Angeles. He was ordained a monk and lived in seclusion for five years before making a return disk with Ten New Songs in 2001.

Lewis Furey loses a master
He’s a friend, but also a teacher and the director Montreal composer Lewis Furey said lost with the death of Leonard Cohen occurred Thursday at the age of 82.

“I know him since I was 16 years old. Leonard Cohen was a teacher to me, “said Furey at Sun just after leaving scene Thursday night. “He greatly influenced by the demands he gave in his way of working. He always pushed to go further, he advocated the importance of thinking about what is written, not to do things in a hurry, “says one who is also the spouse of the actress Carole Laure.

Furey vividly remembers that he considers a model still lay on him a little notebook in which he noted various phrases and ideas. “He never left the house without her notebook and pencil!”

“He was a man who loved the language, who loved the job he was given. He had found a way to sing his poems, which had opened a new door to communicate with his audience. To discover his poetry to people who perhaps would never have been in contact with it in another way, “concluded Furey.