Various Positions: A Life of Leonard Cohen (Jewish Life, History, and Culture)
by Ira B. Nadel
from University of Texas Press
From reviews of the hardcover edition:
"[Various Positions is] more a literary than a rock bio—quiet of tone, serious without being worshipful. Drawing on Cohen's own archives, Nadel plots aspects of Cohen's life—Zen, love affairs, drug use—against the evolution of his writing. He fashions a biography that is revealing but also mindful of its subject at his best."
—Booklist
"An excellent biography, one that manages to be both thoroughly scholarly and genuinely entertaining at the same time."
—Montreal Gazette
"An honest and sympathetic biography."
—New York Times Book Review
"The most authoritative work yet on the 'poet laureate of pessimism.'"
—Library Journal
Known as the "Prince of Bummers," Leonard Cohen is a multi-talented poet, singer-songwriter, novelist, and Zen Buddhist whose career has spanned more than forty years and inspired countless other artists. In this critically acclaimed biography originally published in 1996 by Pantheon Books, Ira Nadel draws on extensive interviews with Cohen, as well as excerpts from his unpublished letters, journals, notebooks, songs, and other writings, to offer a full portrait of this enigmatic man and his artistic career. A new concluding chapter brings Cohen's story up-to-date, including the release of the albums Dear Heather, Ten New Songs, The Essential Leonard Cohen, and Blue Alert, as well as the publication of Book of Longing and the screening of the documentary film Leonard Cohen, I'm Your Man.
Leonard Cohen: Kill Your Idols (Kill Your Idols Series)
by David Sheppard
from Da Capo Press
Leonard Cohen - Artist of Influence (Biography)
by Biographiq
from Biographiq
Leonard Cohen - Artist of Influence is the biography of Leonard Cohen, a Canadian singer-songwriter, poet and novelist. Cohen published his first book of poetry in Montreal in 1956 and his first novel in 1963. Cohen's earliest songs (many of which appeared on the 1968 album Songs of Leonard Cohen) were rooted in European folk music melodies and instrumentation, sung in a high baritone. The 1970s were a musically restless period in which his influences broadened to encompass pop, cabaret, and world music. Since the 1980s he has typically sung in lower registers (bass baritone, sometimes bass), with accompaniment from electronic synthesizers and female backing singers. His work often explores the themes of religion, isolation, sexuality, and complex interpersonal relationships. Leonard Cohen - Artist of Influence is highly recommended for those interested in reading more about this talented artist.
Dylan and Cohen: Poets of Rock and Roll
by David Boucher
from Continuum International Publishing Group
Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen are widely acknowledged as the great pop poets of the 1960s, transforming the popular song into a medium for questionng the personal, social, and political norms of their times. They emerged at a time when the music industry was transforming the revolutionary sound of black music into something bland, homogenous, and fit for mass consumption. For many members of their generation, Dylan and Cohen were able to articulate what they were feeling and could not express: anti-establishement anger, angst, and despondency.
Dylan and Cohen is a fascinating political, psychological and artistic profile of these two iconic writers and performers. With reference to both biographical details and lyrics. David Boucher explores their similarities and differences, tracing the development of religious political, and social themes in their work and the ways in which those ideas engaged a new audience.
A must-read for all serious fans of either Dylan or Cohen, this book will also engage anyone interested in the North America of the 1960s, or more generally in the relationship between music, identity and politics.
Leonard Cohen: Prophet of the Heart
by L. S. Dorman
from Music Sales Corp
Hydra and the Bananas of Leonard Cohen
by Roger Green
from Basic Books
The Song of Leonard Cohen: Portrait of a Poet, A Friendship & a Film
by Harry Rasky
from Mosaic Press (NY)
A memoir of the author's 1981 documentary, The Song of Leonard Cohen. Harry Rasky filmed the wild trip that was the 1979Field Commander Cohen tour. Now he has delved into his personal archives and diaries upon which the film is based, and has woven them into this moving, powerful text. He includes outrageous and intimate interludes with the great Canadian singer-songwriter, including how he and Leonard were mistaken for Bader-Meinhof terrorists by soldiers with machine guns at a German Burger King
Included also are Rasky's never-before-published Bob Dylan Diaries, based on his notes and observations during the filming of a never-completed documentary.
Various Positions : A Life of Leonard Cohen
Leonard Cohen: A Life in Art (Canadian Biography Series)
Take This Waltz: A Celebration of Leonard Cohen
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