Singing with Leonard Cohen was a big adventure. These days no artist of any importance starts touring without having rehearsed for six weeks. A premiere audience typically sees a show that already has been performed thirty times in a desolate factory hall or airplane hangar. After another thirty rehearsals everyone can play his or her part in their sleep. But rehearsing with Leonard came down to participating in three long group discussions about music and receiving a cassette to take home. Once we were touring, every evening we were summoned to Leonard’s dressing room to play and sing for half an hour. Leonard then decided who made the most powerful impression, and that person would get the leading part that evening. And every evening the band and vocalists looked forward with excitement and anxiety to the moment when Leonard would perform for the first time another new version of a song he was working on. The audience loved it as much as he did, but we were wiped out afterwards, that much emotion was invested in such an improvisation. One evening, we discovered that we had been working on the same song for some time. So that was no throw-away song! Every day another brilliant couplet was added. Finally it boiled down to ‘Chelsea Hotel,’ still a milestone in Leonard’s oeuvre.

 

 

Jennifer Warnes

 

Jennifer Warnes “Ik heb een ego als de Eiffeltoren” [Jennifer Warnes ‘I have an ego as big as the Eiffel Tower’] door Jip Golsteijn (De Telegraaf: December 24, 1992)

Note: Jennifer Warnes toured with Leonard Cohen in 1972 and 1979.

Contributed and translated by Anja Deelen

Leonard Cohen – Chelsea Hotel #2
Boston: Dec 16, 2012
Video: albertnoonan

I am republishing selected posts from my former Leonard Cohen site, Cohencentric, here on AllanShowalter.com (these posts can be found at Leonard Cohen). This entry was originally posted Feb 17, 2016.