Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, September 29, 1995 TAG: 9510030043
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PAUL GEITNER ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Long
Their collected efforts - along with contributions from Bono, Trisha Yearwood, Elton John, Tori Amos, Willie Nelson and five others - comprise ``Tower of Song: the Songs of Leonard Cohen.''
The tribute was conceived as a 60th birthday present for a man who began writing poignant songs of lost love and life's struggles 30 years ago, attracting accolades from his peers but little popular success outside his native Canada.
Due imminently from A&M Records (a year late - Cohen turned 61 this month), those who put it together are hoping ``Tower of Song'' will finally push Cohen into the American mainstream.
And what does Cohen, a modest, self-effacing man with no illusions about the vagaries of the music business, think?
``One dares to dream,'' he says with a chuckle. ``I don't know what this will do, what anything will do, or if it will ever happen. But you know, if these guys can't do it, then nobody can.''
Others have tried. ``Tower of Song'' is actually the third tribute album to Cohen, following Jennifer Warnes' ``Famous Blue Raincoat'' in 1986 and ``I'm Your Fan,'' a compilation of covers by alternative bands recruited by the editor of a French rock magazine in 1991.
Judy Collins recorded his ``Suzanne'' in the 1960s and the '70s saw Cohen collaborating with legendary ``Wall of Sound'' producer Phil Spector.
Cohen himself has released nine albums. His latest, 1993's ``The Future'' (Columbia), sold 1 million copies in Canada, but less than half that in the United States, where the Montreal native with the voice of gravel has yet to really rise above cult status.
``I've put out a lot of work and I've toured the country and I've done whatever I can or know how to do to bring my songs to a larger audience, but they never seem to be able to break through in any considerable magnitude,'' he says, with no trace of bitterness.
``Maybe I just didn't have the right kind of voice to present the material in acceptable form. I never was much of a singer, I don't sound like the singers on the radio and my arrangements aren't like the arrangements you hear on the radio.''
But, he says, resigning yourself to the dictates of the marketplace doesn't mean there are no regrets for the lost audience, especially for an artist who spends as much time as Cohen does - a year or more - agonizing over every note and turn of phrase before finishing one song.
Over the years, the image he's attained has been that of a tortured artist dressed in black from head to toe, who revels in minor-keyed melodies and obscure, sorrowful lyrics of romantic longing and loneliness.
Yet Cohen calls that a bad rap.
``I always thought that if people could hear the material, they would find that it was accessible, that it wasn't what it was reputed to be: too complicated, too dark, too melancholy,'' he says.
``I mean, I've written about some serious matters. I've been in trouble like the next guy and I've written about it. It's not as though my experience is unique. I think everybody's been up against it, and is up against it.''
In an essay included with ``Tower of Song,'' author Tom Robbins describes Cohen as a mournful Cole Porter or ``an electrified, de-Germanized Kurt Weill.''
But in a recent phone interview from his manager's Los Angeles office, the never-married Cohen describes himself as ``cheerful,'' despite a recent break-up with actress Rebecca de Mornay, whom he describes as ``a sweet thing of the past.''
He recently moved to Mount Baldy, a town about two hours drive from Los Angeles that he calls ``a small community of Zen practitioners.'' There, he gets up before dawn every day for meditation, does a lot of cooking and works on new songs and a book of poetry, tentatively titled ``The Book of Longing.''
Yet Cohen, who was raised in a family of well-to-do Jewish clothiers, doesn't consider himself a Buddhist, despite an association that goes back more than 20 years.
``I just like living in a small community and getting up early,'' he explains. ``Otherwise, I'd just spend all day in bed watching television. ... If I didn't do that, I'd probably be just another expert on the O.J. Simpson trial.''
He also spends time with his two adult children, a son and a daughter, and, despite his isolation, tries to keep in touch with today's music scene.
``I know that when I turn on the radio sometimes coming down the mountain ... there's always something good,'' he says. ``I'm certainly not one of those who believe that our music was the best and it's all been downhill since then. There are always voices that rise and insist on being heard and nourish those who hear them.''
Whether some of those new voices can turn his songs into pop hits today isn't a question that weighs heavily on Cohen's mind.
``I know enough about music and writers and singing to know that to be able to live by one's work is a rare and very unusual circumstance,'' he says, ``and I was always happy about it.''
As a kid just beginning to experiment with songwriting, ``I had a sense that there was a great tradition. ... You're not just talking about Randy Newman, who's sublime. You're not just talking about Bob Dylan, who's sublime. You're talking about King David. You're talking about Homer. You're talking about Dante. You're talking about Milton, Wordsworth. You're talking about some spirits who embody our highest human possibility.
``So that's why I've always thought of myself as a minor poet. But I'm happy to be a minor poet in that tradition.''
by CNB