Leonard Cohen, the Blues Rocker

I learnt this morning than Leonard Cohen died this Thursday, he was 82

The singer of "Halleluja" was born in Montreal on Sept. 21, 1934, and grew up in the prosperous suburb of Westmount. His father, Nathan, whose family had emigrated to Canada from Poland, owned a successful clothing store ; he died when Leonard was 9, but this will included a provision for a small trust fund, which later allowed his son to pursue his literary and musical ambitions. His mother, the former Masha Klonitzky, a nurse, was of Lithuanian descent and the daughter of a Talmudic scholar and rabbi. "I had a messianic childhood", Mr. Cohen would later say.

Over a musical career that spanned nearly five decades, Mr. Cohen wrote songs that addressed ( in spare language that could be both oblique and telling ) themes of love and faith, despair and exaltation, solitude and connection, war and politic. More than 2,000 recordings of his songs have been made, initially by the folk-pop singers who were his firsts champions, like Judy Collins and Tim Hardin, and later by performers from across the spectrum of popular music, among them U2, Aretha Franklin, R.E.M, Jeff Buckley, Trisha Yearwood and Elton John.

This singer was one of the most important for me, his songs rocked mi childhood and will continue to enchant me every time I will listen to one.

source : ABC journal

Some words : 

Fund : a sum of money set aside for a specific purpose

Talmudic : of or pertaining to the Talmud

Messiah : The promise deliverer of the jewish people

Oblique : indirectly expressed