Leonard Cohen, 78, brought his latest world tour to the Louisville Palace Theater in Louisville, KY on March 30. “Best Easter ever,” shouted one excitable woman during “So Long, Marianne.” Cohen’s dark and evocative lyrics seemed extra powerful in the ornate, Spanish Baroque-styled venue. During the performance, he frequently dropped to his knees (still in [...]

“Fools Gold,” the closing track on Fiction Family’s sophomore album Fiction Family Reunion, stands on some pretty tall shoulders. In the first verse, singer Jon Foreman declares, “I found a picture of you in black and white/ Looking like Bob Dylan’s disciple.” And just two verses later, he confesses, “You swore to me that we’d [...]

  50. Band of Horses: Mirage Rock Even back when Band of Horses were writing soaring and dreamy indie rock epics like “The Funeral,” beneath the shimmer and sheen of their Pacific Northwestern façade, there was a gritty, folky Southern rock band. Increasingly that’s become all the more a part of the band’s identity, and the [...]

Alan Light’s The Holy or the Broken: Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley and the Unlikely Ascent of “Hallelujah” explores how a random album track on Jeff Buckley’s commercial flop Grace– written by an old master, Leonard Cohen — went on to change the course of music history. The book is available December 4 from Atria Books. [...]

Veteran singer-songwriter Suzanne Vega took a novel approach to her back catalog with her self-released Close Up album series, re-recording stripped-down versions of her songs and grouping them by theme (Love Songs, People and Places, States of Being). The latest, Songs Of Family, just hit stores. We asked Vega about her approach to her craft, [...]

The inimitable Donovan has countless tales to relay and advice to dispense. We sat down with him at the Sony office in Manhattan, where he was eager to reflect on the songs and stories that populate the new Essential Donovan’s 36 tracks. Clad in leather jacket, Starbucks venti in hand, the 66-year-old legend discusses a [...]

The verdict is in. So says Adam Cohen, anyway, son of the legendary Leonard Cohen. He’s talking specifically about being a writer, but, after years of rejecting his family folk tradition and (rather unsuccessfully) chasing mainstream rock star fame, fortune and the women that might follow both, the jury has finally emerged, throwing down one [...]

After a successful jaunt through Europe, celebrated songwriter and live album enthusiast Leonard Cohen will bring his Old Ideas tour to the U.S. Cohen spoke with Rolling Stone recently about the decision to tour the United States: “I have two minds,” he said. “I don’t like to do a small tour, so whether I’m going [...]

After taking a long break from the road, Leonard Cohen began touring again in May 2008. The songwriter hadn’t played a full show in 15 years, and longtime fans were ecstatic to have him back. For Cohen, though, returning to the stage as a 74 year-old was a dark, desperate thing. His former manager, Kelley [...]

Rufus Wainwright once sang convincingly and evocatively about Millbrook, a quiet town in upstate New York. Now, he turns to Montauk, the Long Island vacation hot spot where he and his partner live. The song is presumably about Viva, the child Wainwright had with birth mother Lorca Cohen, who’s the daughter of Leonard Cohen. “Montauk” [...]

Taken from Paul Zollo’s interviews for SongTalk. Neil Young: Dylan was a great influence on me. I admire his work very much. Especially his newest work. Randy Newman: Dylan at his best is great. Leonard Cohen: At a certain point, when the Jews were first commanded to raise an altar, the commandment was on unhewn [...]

The mesmerizing 37-minute jam session recently posted on Neil Young’s website is in fact “Horse Back,” a hodgepodge of songs performed by Neil Young and his backing band, Crazy Horse. Neil Young has now confirmed that he has completed an album with the band, and expects a spring release. Ben Kweller tells the New York [...]