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Leonard Cohen To Be Inducted Into The Songwriters Hall Of Fame
FEBRUARY 18, 2010
It has been announced that Leonard Cohen, along with Jackie DeShannon, David Foster, Johnny Mandel and Earth, Wind & Fire's Maurice White, Philip Bailey, Verdine White, Larry Dunn and Al McKay, will be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame this year. The organization, which is dedicated to recognizing the work and lives of those composers and lyricists who create popular music around the world, returns for its highly anticipated 41st annual induction and awards dinner, scheduled for Thursday, June 17 at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City. Special award honorees will be announced at a later date.

"Our 2010 inductees are truly representational of the heart and soul of the world's Popular Music soundtrack," commented Chairman/CEO Hal David. "We are looking forward to another memorable evening where we honor their extraordinary accomplishments."

The full press release can be viewed at www.songhall.org.

Leonard Cohen Reschedules European Performances Due To Injury
FEBRUARY 8, 2010
It has been announced today that a run of performances by Leonard Cohen have been rescheduled to allow proper time for a sports-related injury sustained by the artist to heal.

While exercising recently, Leonard Cohen suffered a compression injury in his lower back. He has been advised by physicians to follow the typical four to six month regime of physical therapy prescribed for athletes with similar injuries.

"Doctors have confirmed that Mr. Cohen is otherwise in terrific shape, thanks to years of exercise and careful diet, and simply needs appropriate time to recover from the lower back injury," stated Cohen's manager, Robert Kory.

The rescheduled dates below will be amended shortly to reflect all thirteen rescheduled dates:

July 25 - ZAGREB - ARENA
September 15 - CAEN - ZENITH
September 17 - GRENOBLE - PALAIS DES SPORTS
September 19 - STRASBOURG - ZENITH
September 21 - MARSEILLE - LE DOME
September 23 - TOURS - PARC DES EXPOSITIONS
September 25 - LILLE - ZENITH GRAND PALAIS
October 04 - KATOWICE - SPODEK
October 07 - MOSCOW - KREMLIN PALACE
October 13 - BRATISLAVA - INCHEBA EXPO ARENA

Leonard Cohen Live At The Isle Of Wight 1970, Available Now
OCTOBER 21, 2009
600,000 people were in awe as the iconic folksinger-songwriter-poet-novelist Leonard Cohen gave the performance of a lifetime during the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970. The beautiful new film by director Murray Lerner pairs the breathtaking performance by Cohen with interviews of festival attendees and musicians Joan Baez, Kris Kristofferson and Judy Collins, as well as a look at the atmosphere of the weekend-long festival.

The accompanying CD includes the complete audio of Cohen's performance: 14 previously unreleased songs, plus the poetry, stories and musings that tamed and awed the incendiary crowd.

This package is available in three formats; DVD/CD, Vinyl Double-LP and Blu-ray DVD. The DVD/CD contains the new documentary by Lerner along with the full performance on CD and the Vinyl Double-LP contains the entire performance on 180 gram audiophile vinyl.

Leonard Cohen Live At The Isle Of Wight 1970 is available in stores and online now. For a full track listing and purchase details, visit www.leonard-cohen.com.

Leonard Cohen 'Live At The Isle Of Wight' Trailer Up Now
OCTOBER 13, 2009
Check out the videos section now to view the trailer for 'Leonard Cohen Live At The Isle Of Wight.' The new film, directed by Academy Award-winner Murray Lerner, is available October 20, 2009 as CD-DVD set or Vinyl LP containing the audio from the historic performance. Click here to watch the trailer.

Pre-order now for a chance to WIN tickets to see Leonard Cohen!
OCTOBER 5, 2009
Fans in the U.S. can pre-order Leonard Cohen's Live At The Isle of Wight here and automatically be entered for a chance to win 2 tickets to any of his U.S. tour dates! For each venue, a winner will be chosen. For rules and more info, click here.

Beck Recruits MGMT, Devendra Banhart & Little Joy to Cover Leonard Cohen
SEPTEMBER 8, 2009
The second round of Beck's Record Club series has begun, this time with a gathering of his musician friends recording a cover of Leonard Cohen's 1967 album, 'Songs of Leonard Cohen'. The recruited group is made up of Devendra Banhart, Ben, Andrew and Matt from MGMT, Andrew from Wolfmother, Binki Shapiro of Little Joy, and Brian Lebarton and Bram Inscore from his touring band. You can watch the video of their gruff, groovy and cello-lined take on "Suzanne", with a new song added once a week.

Beck's website says, "There is no intention to 'add to' the original work or attempt to recreate the power of the original recording. Only to play music and document what happens. And those who aren't familiar with the albums in question will hopefully look for the songs in their definitive versions." Look out for track two, "Master Song," coming soon!

Happy At Last: A Tribute To Leonard Cohen on "All Songs Considered" at NPR
AUGUST 24, 2009
Inspired by Leonard Cohen's recent return to the stage, a group of artists at the 2009 South by Southwest Music festival paid tribute to the legendary singer-songwriter by performing some of his work.

The event was captured on video, and NPR radio is posting the performances as a series on "All Songs Considered". Part I began with French folk duo Herman Dune's cover of "Here It Is" from the album "Ten New Songs". Visit www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/ for the remaining 4 performances that will be posted throughout the week.

2009: Leonard Cohen's Stellar Comeback Year Capped By DVD Debut Of 1970 Concert Performance
AUGUST 24, 2009
Nearly 40 summers ago on August 31, 1970, 35-year-old Leonard Cohen was awakened at 2 a.m. from a nap in his trailer and brought onstage to perform with his band at the third annual Isle Of Wight music festival. The audience of 600,000 was in a fiery and frenzied mood, after turning the festival into a political arena, trampling the fences, setting fire to structures and equipment - and stoked by the most incendiary performance of Jimi Hendrix's career, less than three weeks before his death.

As Cohen followed Hendrix's set, onlookers (and fellow festival headliners) Joan Baez, Kris Kristofferson, Judy Collins and others stood sidestage in awe as the Canadian folksinger-songwriter-poet-novelist quietly tamed the crowd. Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Murray Lerner, whose footage of the 1970 festival did not begin to see release until 1995, was able to capture Cohen's performance. Likewise, Columbia Records staff A&R producer Teo Macero, who was ostensibly there to record Miles Davis' set, did a brilliant job of supervising Cohen's live recording as well.

Leonard Cohen Live At The Isle of Wight 1970' is a fascinating and timely portrait of the artist as a young man, just three years into his recording career (though he was already a published poet and novelist for 15 years). As he mesmerizes the Isle Of Wight audience, Cohen intersperses a baker's dozen songs with tales both real and apocryphal, as well as a handful of his poems. In pristine condition after nearly four decades in the archive, the video and audio programs will be available together as a deluxe two-disc DVD+CD package at all physical and digital retail outlets starting October 20^th through Columbia/Legacy, a division of Sony Music Entertainment. A double-LP vinyl set and Blu-ray, will be released on the same date.

The CD (and double-LP) of 'Live At The Isle of Wight 1970' represent the 77-minute concert set as performed by Cohen and his backup band: Bob Johnston (Cohen's Nashville-based Columbia A&R staff producer), and Nashville musicians Charlie Daniels (electric bass, fiddle), Ron Cornelius (lead guitar), and Elkin 'Bubba' Fowler (bass, banjo). They were joined by backup singers Corlynn Hanney, Susan Musmanno, and Donna Washburn. During the course of their European tour - which Cohen only agreed to undertake if Johnston (producer of Cohen's most recent LP, 'Songs From A Room') would manage him and organize the
band - the group began to call themselves The Army, owing to the battles they were subjected to by audiences on the road.

The DVD (and Blu-ray) of 'Live At The Isle of Wight 1970' is a masterwork by Murray Lerner, known for his work on Festival!, his Oscar-nominated 1969 documentary of the Newport Folk Festivals. His work on that film spurred the Isle Of Wight promoters to bring him aboard and document their festival - whose violence turned it into the last of the three original Isle Of Wight festivals of 1968, 1969, and 1970. (Bob Dylan put the festival on the map when he performed there in 1968, his first public performance since recovering from his fabled motorcycle crash of 1966.)

Lerner's Isle of Wight footage went unfunded for decades until 1995, when the multi-artist Message To Love (with its brief snippet of Cohen singing "Suzanne") was finally issued on video. Since then, Lerner's documentary-style Isle of Wight videos on the 1970 performances by Miles Davis, The Who, and Jimi Hendrix have inspired a new generation of music fans. In 1980, Lerner's From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern In China won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

Adding further historic provenance to 'Live At The Isle of Wight 1970' is a newly commissioned 2,000-word liner notes essay written by veteran British rock journalist and BBC commentator Sylvie Simmons. Author of well-received biographies on Neil Young (Reflections In Broken Glass, 2003), Serge Gainsbourg
and others, Simmons previously wrote liner notes for the 2003 Sony International compilation MOJO Presents An Introduction To Leonard Cohen.

"Before he sang," Simmons writes, "Cohen talked to the hundreds of thousands of people he couldn't see. He told them - sedately - a story that sounded like a parable and a bedtime story that worked like hypnotism and at the same time tested the temperature of the crowd. He described how his father would take him to the circus as a child. Leonard didn't much like circuses, but he enjoyed the part where a man would stand up and ask everyone to light a match so they could locate each other in the darkness. 'Can I ask each of you to light a match,' Leonard asked the audience, 'so I can see where you all are?'"

All but three of the songs on 'Live At The Isle of Wight 1970' originated on Cohen's first two LPs, his debut 'Songs Of Leonard Cohen' from 1967 ("So Long, Marianne," "One Of Us Cannot Be Wrong," "The Stranger Song," "Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye," "Suzanne"); and 'Songs From A Room' from 1969 ("Bird On The Wire," "You Know Who I Am," "Tonight Will Be Fine," "The Partisan," "Seems So Long Ago, Nancy"). The three other songs - "Diamonds In The Mine," "Sing Another Song Boys," and "Famous Blue Raincoat" - were destined for Cohen's third album, 1971's 'Songs of Love and Hate' (which actually reprised the Isle of Wight live version of "Sing Another Song Boys").

The October 20^th release of 'Live At The Isle of Wight 1970' coincides with the next leg of Cohen's first full-scale U.S. tour in 15 years, opening October 17^th at the BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise, Florida (Fort Lauderdale), ending November 13^th at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, California. (Please see complete itinerary below.)

Cohen made history earlier this year when - in between critically acclaimed concerts in Canada, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand - he played New York's Beacon Theatre in February, followed by California's Coachella Festival in April. These were his first U.S. performances since 1994, the year that he commenced a five-year retreat at the Mt. Baldy Zen Center atop a mountain in the San Gabriel Forest.

Cohen returned to recording and touring in 1999, when he released the studio album 'Ten New Songs' in 2001. The live album 'Field Commander Cohen' came in 2001 (culled from British tour dates back in 1979); and the studio album 'Dear Heather' in 2004. 2006 marked the release of 'Blue Alert', the debut album by Anjani Thomas, a protégé of Cohen since the '80s, produced by Cohen, with all songs co-written by Cohen and Anjani.

Leonard Cohen has been inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 1991, Cohen was made an Officer of the Order of Canada and in 2003, a Companion to the Order of Canada - the latter of which is Canada's highest civilian honor recognizing a lifetime of outstanding achievement, dedication to the community and service to the nation. On March 10, 2008, Leonard Cohen was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame at the 23rd annual dinner ceremony and was made a Grand Officer of the National Order of Quebec in June
2008.

In March 2009, Cohen released 'Live In London' as a DVD and as a separate double-CD package. The concert was recorded at the O2 Arena in 2008 and received 5-star reviews and in Canada the DVD is Triple Platinum and the CD is Platinum.

Along the way, Leonard Cohen became the first Canadian-born artist 'inducted' into Legacy Recordings' prestigious Essential series - when 'The Essential Leonard Cohen' was issued in 2002. The 31-song compilation was personally chosen by the artist, with selections that ranged from 'Songs Of Leonard Cohen' through 2001's 'Ten New Songs'. In May 2007, Columbia/Legacy issued expanded editions of 'Songs Of Leonard Cohen', 'Songs From A Room', and 'Songs Of Love and Hate', each with multiple tracks of previously unreleased bonus material.

All of the tracks on 'Live At The Isle of Wight 1970' were written by Leonard Cohen except the highly-charged "The Partisan," originally a French song of World War II heroism and resistance. The English translation was penned by Tin Pan Alley songsmith Hy Zaret, of "Unchained Melody" and "One Meatball" renown. Joan Baez had been singing "The Partisan" for years, and at Isle of Wight Cohen dedicated the song to her "and the work she is doing." (Baez finally got around to recording "The Partisan" on her 1972 album, 'Come From the Shadows', whose title came from a line in the song.)

Joan Baez - whose performance preceded Hendrix at Isle of Wight - is among the quartet of fellow festival performers who bear witness to Lerner in 2009, along with Judy Collins, Bob Johnston, and Kris Kristofferson. Their interviews add to the historic impact of 'Live At The Isle of Wight 1970.'

"It was a brilliant performance," Simmons writes, "and Lerner's cameras captured Cohen's commanding presence, hypnotist's charm, and an intimacy that would seem unfeasible in such a vast, inhospitable space." As Johnston sums up, "It was magical, from the first moment to the last. I've never seen anything like it. He was just remarkable."

DVD + CD:

LEONARD
COHEN LIVE AT THE ISLE OF WIGHT 1970

LEONARD COHEN LIVE AT THE ISLE OF WIGHT 1970

LEONARD COHEN LIVE AT THE ISLE OF WIGHT 1970

LP One: Selections - Side one: 1. Introduction • 2. Bird On The Wire • 3. Intro to So Long, Marianne • 4. So Long, Marianne • 5. Intro: "Let's renew ourselves now..." • 6. You Know Who I Am • Side two: 1 Intro to Poems • 2 Lady Midnight • 3 They Locked Up A Man (poem)/A Person Who Eats Meat/Intro • 4 One Of Us Cannot Be Wrong • 5 The Stranger Song.

LP Two: Selections - Side one: 1. Tonight Will Be Fine • 2. Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye • 3. Diamonds In The Mine • 4. Suzanne • Side two: 1 Sing Another Song, Boys • 2 The Partisan • 3 Famous Blue Raincoat • 4 Seems So Long Ago, Nancy.

Due To Overwhelming Demand Leonard Cohen's Acclaimed 2009 World Tour Returns to North America
JULY 22, 2009
To the delight of his legions of fans, Leonard Cohen will once again return to the U.S. this fall for the final leg of his critically acclaimed 2009 World Tour. Since taking the stage earlier this year at New York's Beacon Theatre-his first stateside performance in more than fifteen years-Mr. Cohen has enchanted audiences, earning rave reviews and sold-out concerts across the globe. The highly anticipated 15-date trek kicks off October 17, 2009 at BankAtlantic Center in Ft. Lauderdale, FL and culminates on November 13 in San Jose, CA, which is the fourth Northern California date of the tour. Tickets for the newly added concerts will go on sale beginning Monday, August 3, 2009. Additional tour information is available at www.LeonardCohen.com and www.AEGLive.com.

While the acclaimed singer/songwriter/poet is currently dazzling crowds across Europe, his fall return to the U.S. will mark the final engagements of the intimate, superbly crafted concert tour. Encore performances have been added in a number of cities, including New York for a fourth and final show; Philadelphia for one of the last concerts ever at the soon-to-be-closed Wachovia Spectrum; as well as a third concert in Chicago, IL.

The second North American leg will extend Cohen's phenomenal series of concerts, which have been overwhelmingly received both at home and abroad. Countless five-star reviews have followed the tour across the UK, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. As the London Daily Telegraph plainly stated, it is "an extraordinary night of music," while the UK's Champion Newspapers remarked that concertgoers "were more reverential to the great man...and appeared to hang on his every word." The Liverpool Daily Post stated that Cohen "seemed to be more a man worshipping than simply singing hits...the care with which he shaped, uttered and offered each word gave the song a sacred, prayer-like quality."

Mr. Cohen's current band features Sharon Robinson and the Webb Sisters (background vocals), Roscoe Beck (musical director & bass), Neil Larsen (keyboards & Hammond B3 accordion), Bob Metzger (electric, acoustic & pedal steel guitar), Javier Mas (bandurria, laud, archilaud, 12-string acoustic guitar), Rafael Gayol (drums, percussion), Dino Soldo (sax, clarinet, dobro, keys).

In conjunction with the tour was the release of Leonard Cohen's Live In London on March 31, 2009. The CD and DVD release contains a musical chronicle of the legendary musician's historic July 17, 2008 concert at London's O2 arena.

Leonard Cohen 2009 North American Tour - Second Leg

Sat, Oct 17, 2009 Ft. Lauderdale, Fl - BankAtlantic Center
Mon, Oct 19, 2009 Tampa, FL - St. Pete Times Forum
Tue, Oct 20, 2009 Atlanta, GA - Fox Theatre
Thu, Oct 22, 2009 Philadelphia, PA - The Wachovia Spectrum
Fri, Oct 23, 2009 New York, NY - Madison Square Garden
Sun, Oct 25, 2009 Cleveland, OH - Allen Theatre
Tue, Oct 27, 2009 Columbus, OH - Palace Theatre
Thu, Oct 29, 2009 Chicago, IL - Rosemont Theatre
Sun, Nov 01, 2009 Asheville, NC - Thomas Wolfe Auditorium
Tue, Nov 03, 2009 Durham, NC - Durham Performing Arts Center
Thu, Nov 05, 2009 Nashville, TN - Tennessee Performing Arts Center (Andrew Jackson Hall)
Sat, Nov 07, 2009 St. Louis, MO - Fox Theatre
Mon, Nov 09, 2009 Kansas City, MO - The Midland by AMC
Thu, Nov 12, 2009 Las Vegas, NV - The Colosseum® at Caesars Palace®
Fri, Nov 13, 2009 San Jose, CA - HP Pavilion at San Jose

New European Tour Dates Announced
APRIL 21, 2009
Today, Leonard Cohen has announced that he will be adding over 30 European dates to his world tour. He will be making stops in Madrid, Monaco, Dublin, Liverpool and several other cities across Europe.

European Tour Dates

July 1, 2009 - Köln/Cologne, Germany @ Lanxess Arena
July, 2, 2009 - Berlin, Germany @ O2 Arena
July 4, 2009 - Antwerp, Belgium @ Sport Palais
July 6, 2009 - Nantes, France @ Zenith
Jul7 7, 2009 - Paris, France @ Bercy
July 9, 2009 - Toulouse, France @ Zenith
July 11, 2009 - Weybridge, UK @ Mercedes Benz World
July 14, 2009 - Liverpool, UK @ Arena
July 16, 2009 - Langesund, Norway @ Langesund Festival
July 17, 2009 - Molde, Norway @ Jazz Festival
July 19, 20, 22 and 23, 2009 - Dublin, Ireland @ O2
July 26, 2009 - Belfast, Northern Ireland @ Odyssey
July 30, 2009 - Lisbon, Portugal @ Atlântico Arena
July 31, 2009 - Leon, Spain @ Leon Arena

August 13, 2009 - Vigo, Spain @ Festival Castrelos
August 15, 2009 - Girona, Spain @ Festival Cap Roig
August 18, 2009 - Vienne, France @ Theatre Antique
August 20, 2009 - Nimes, France @ Arènes de Nimes
August 22 and 23, 2009 - Monaco, France @ Sporting Club
August 26, 2009 - Wiesen, Austria @ Wiesen Festival
August 28, 2009 - Bratislava, Slovakia @ Inchebo Expo Arena
August 29, 2009 - Prague, Czech Republic @ O2 Arena
August 31, 2009 - Budapest, Hungary @ Papp László Budapest Sportaréna

September 12, 2009 - Madrid, Spain @ Palacio de los Sportes
September 13, 2009 - Granada, Spain @ Colisseum
September 17, 2009 - Bilbao, Spain @ Bilbao Exhibition Centre
September 21, 20009 - Barcelona, Spain @ Palau St Jordi

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