Leonard Cohen biography, age and cause of death, family members

Leonard Cohen

Leonard Norman Cohen — a Canadian singer-songwriter, poet, and novelist, and a folk music legend. His work is known for its openly depressive lyrics, with predominant themes of longing and loneliness. His most famous songs, "Suzanne" and "Hallelujah," have been covered many times by other musicians.

Childhood

Leonard Norman Cohen was born on September 21, 1934, in Westmount, Canada, into an Orthodox Jewish family. His maternal grandfather, Rabbi Solomon Klinitsky-Klein, fled Poland for Canada during the Jewish pogroms in 1923. His paternal grandfather, businessman and dandy Lyon Cohen, co-founded Canada's first Jewish newspaper, The Jewish Times. His mother, Masha Klinitsky, was an immigrant from Lithuania.

Leonard grew up in Jewish traditions, attending a Jewish school and, when the time came, underwent his bar mitzvah, the Jewish coming-of-age ceremony.

Leonard's father died when he was 9 years old. That was when the boy began writing poetry. He was inspired by the poetry of Walt Whitman, the work of W.B. Yeats, and Henry Miller.

He also had a passion for music. At 17, he bought his first guitar for $12. Cohen recalled it as a terrible instrument with metal strings that cut his fingers to the bone. There was no pop culture or television, so he had to learn everything on his own. Only years later did Leonard discover guitars with softer nylon strings. "Girls like guitars," he thought, forming the group "Buckskin Boys."

In 1951, Leonard became a student at McGill University in Montreal, where he studied English literature. At the university, he won the Chester MacNaughton Prize for creative writing for a series of four poems.

After university, Cohen intended to become a lawyer and even studied for a year at Columbia University. But his acquaintance with the beatnik culture, the works of Jack Kerouac, and folk music brought him back to the creative path.

Writing Career

Leonard Cohen's first poetry collection, dedicated to his father's memory and titled "Let Us Compare Mythologies," was released in 1956. The publication brought him neither fame, nor money, nor the women he so desired.

Leonard decided to switch to prose. In 1963, he published the novel "The Favourite Game," followed by "Beautiful Losers," which Robert Fulford of the Toronto Daily Star called "the most revolting book ever written in Canada." Other critics compared Cohen to William S. Burroughs, James Joyce, and Thomas Pynchon. The narrative was told from the perspective of a completely disillusioned, tired, and cynical man.

Cohen worked on the book on the Greek island of Hydra, living almost like a recluse. He wrote for up to 20 hours a day, encouraging himself with large doses of LSD. In the last week of work, he suffered a nervous breakdown and got sunstroke, spending two weeks in a feverish delirium with a temperature of nearly 40°C.

As a writer, Leonard Cohen did not receive universal recognition

Another novel by Cohen, "The Ballet of Lepers," was never published. It is stored in the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto.

Musical Career

In 1966, Cohen realized that making a living as a writer in Canada was impossible. He moved to New York to pursue a musical career. He was already 32 years old. All the music promoters told him that he was "too old for such games."

Leonard settled in the Chelsea Hotel, where Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and Bob Dylan lived. Cohen sang his song "Suzanne" over the phone to folk singer Judy Collins. She promised to cover the song, but Cohen thought it was a joke. However, the song did appear on her album "In My Life" (1966).

In the summer of 1967, Leonard was invited to perform at the Newport Folk Festival, where Bob Dylan's producer John Hammond noticed him. In the Chelsea Hotel room, Hammond listened to seven of Cohen's songs and offered him a contract with Columbia Records.

Leonard Cohen - Suzanne

On December 27, 1967, Cohen's debut album "Songs of Leonard Cohen" was released. The album reached number 13 on the UK charts. The new singer was terribly afraid of making mistakes, but Hammond was very generous. In the studio, he always read the newspaper, paying no attention to Cohen, which made him feel freer and more confident.

In the US, the album didn't make the Billboard Top 100, nor did any of Cohen's subsequent works. He never became a significant figure in the United States. The flower power generation didn't need the melancholic songs of a mature man in a suit and hat. Cohen didn't fit the spirit of the times.

In interviews, he often said that 'the 60s were a great time that lasted about eleven minutes, and then the merchants arrived.' Such statements did not make him popular with the youth.

In 1973, during the Yom Kippur War between Israel and a coalition of Arab countries, Cohen flew to the Promised Land and asked to be enlisted as a volunteer on the front. After being refused, he contributed to the effort by performing for IDF soldiers.

Leonard Cohen comes from an Orthodox Jewish family

The album "Death of a Ladies' Man" (1977) was Cohen's only work with legendary producer Phil Spector. According to Cohen, it was sheer madness. Spector came to the studio with a gang of armed bodyguards and rejected all of Cohen's suggestions regarding the recording. Eventually, Cohen gave up. The result was a terrible album with raw vocal tracks.

Leonard Cohen - Hallelujah (Live In London)

Cohen's most famous work was the album "The Future" (1992), which actress Rebecca De Mornay helped record. Trent Reznor included the title track and "Waiting for the Miracle" in the soundtrack for Oliver Stone's film "Natural Born Killers." The track "Democracy" was played at Bill Clinton's inauguration. Unexpectedly for himself, Cohen received recognition just when he was about to quit music.

Leonard Cohen - Waiting For The Miracle

Soon after, the tribute album "I'm Your Fan" was released, featuring Leonard's songs performed by John Cale, R.E.M., and The Pixies. Kurt Cobain also expressed his love for Cohen's work.

In 1996, Cohen spent five years in a Zen Buddhist monastery near Los Angeles. He drove his mentor Roshi, meditated, and cooked for the community members. All this helped Cohen overcome depression and find inner peace. When asked how he reconciled Judaism and Zen Buddhism in his worldview, Cohen replied, "There is no religious worship or prayer in Zen, which means that theologically, Judaism and Zen do not contradict each other."

Leonard Cohen in a Zen Buddhist monastery

In 2010, Cohen received a Grammy for Lifetime Achievement in Music. In 2015, the song "Nevermind" appeared in the opening credits of the second season of the series "True Detective."

Leonard Cohen's Personal Life

Leonard Cohen never married. Due to the womanizer image he created in his songs, many believed he had dozens of women. At the end of his life, he admitted that this was never the case. Each decade was marked by a long romance with one woman.

Ladies and Gentlemen... Mr. Leonard Cohen

In the '60s, his partner was Scandinavian Marianne Ihlen. The couple lived on the island of Hydra without cars, electricity, or running water. She passed away in 2016, three months before Leonard.

In the '70s, the poet's muse was artist Suzanne Elrod, who bore him two children. His son, Adam, became the frontman of the band Low Millions. Cohen named his daughter Lorca after the poet Federico Garcia Lorca. Lorca is a photographer, and during her father's world tour, she curated the video sequences for his concerts.

In the '90s, Leonard's companion was actress Rebecca De Mornay. She was the last woman in the singer's life.

Cohen had three grandchildren: Adam gave him Cassius, and Lorca gave him Viva and Leon.

As a child, Leonard was fascinated by hypnosis. He first tried it on animals, then on the housekeeper, making her undress.

Religion always played a significant role in the bard's life. He claimed that meditation could offer much more than fame, wealth, wine, and women.

Some critics doubted the sincerity of Cohen's work: at concerts, he repeated the same movements, the same jokes, and even knelt at the same moments.

Death

Leonard Cohen's final album, "You Want It Darker," was released in October 2016. One of the songs was consider words "Hineni, My Lord," which translates to "Here I am, Lord." Cohen's fans saw this as a hint at the musician's impending death, but Leonard dispelled these fears during a press conference: "I intend to live to 120."

However, on the night of November 7, 2016, Leonard Cohen passed away in his Los Angeles mansion. He died in his sleep. Doctors cited leukemia as the cause of death. They buried the singer according to Jewish tradition in his hometown of Montreal on November 10.