COHEN DIDN’T ALWAYS GET GLOWING REVIEWS
Leonard Cohen has been a regular presence in the Toronto Star’s pages for the better part of six decades, dating back to the days when he was known as the enfant terrible of new Canadian literature rather than one of the most respected and influential pop artists ever to grace a recording studio.
But it hasn’t always been a love-in with Montreal’s most famous musical export.
A perusal of some early Star pieces on Cohen, who died Monday at age 82, marks him as a somewhat divisive figure in these parts.
June 13, 1961: Leonard Cohen vs. Montreal. Sort of.
Cohen purchased a house on the Greek island of Hydra in 1960, no doubt as a refuge from the deep freeze that tends to set in Montreal around this time of year.
He, thus, couldn’t help poking a little good-natured fun at his hometown in the dust-jacket notes to his newest book of poems at the time, The Salt Box of Earth.
Still he concedes nonetheless that his love for the town would always keep him coming back.
December 26, 1964: It’s already all over for Leonard Cohen.
This edition of the Saturday Star presented a roundup of celebrities deemed “in” or “out” as 1964 drew to a close, and the verdict was not good for Cohen: he was, apparently, already passé to the Star’s entertainment corps and deemed “out.”
Not to worry, though, he was in good company on the “out” side.
His literary mentor, Irving Layton, was on the outs with him, along with Mordecai Richler, Saul Bellow, Ed Mirvish, Frank Sinatra, Glenn Gould, Tony Bennett, Ingmar Bergman and Jane Fonda.
April 21, 1966: No, wait, Leonard Cohen is hot again.
Despite the Star’s prognostications of his “out”-ness in 1964, Cohen was apparently still a pretty hot property in literary circles two years later.
This piece, about the scramble for original manuscripts at universities up and down North America, took a certain amount of pride in pointing out that the University of Toronto library had acquired the manuscript to his novel Beautiful Losers ahead of its actual publication.
April 26, 1966: No, wait, Leonard Cohen is “out” again.
Columnist Robert Fulford is not terribly impressed with Beautiful Losers.
Under the headline “Leonard Cohen’s nightmare novel,” he eviscerates the work as “a book of ravings, some sacred, some profane” and “a Canadianized version of what the American critics have called ‘the excremental vision.’ ”
November 4, 1967: Meet Leonard Cohen, pop star.
With an album on the way for American label Columbia Records, the Toronto Star’s first profile of the man in his new guise as singer/songwriter is quite charitable.
Great things are ahead for Cohen, declares music critic Ralph Thomas, concluding breathlessly: “Leonard Cohen, within months, could become Canada’s first major pop-rock star and influence.”
February 15, 1973: Cohen gives up music forever.
“Leonard Cohen quits his musical interests, will stick to writing,” brayed the headline. But wait! There was hope.
“I also plan to pen songs if I feel they are good and when I feel I have something worthwhile to sing about,” said Cohen.
His 14th and final studio album, You Want it Darker, came out last month. So you know how that worked out.