Dieser Artikel fasst  ein spezielles Cohen/ Dylan-Event aus dem Jahre 2014 in England zusammen.

Mole Valley Poets – Meeting 31^st March 2014 Tony Earnshaw: Leonard Cohen & Bob Dylan: Lyrics & poetry

http://www.molevalleypoets.co.uk/leonard_cohen_bob_dylan.html

Tony included a recording of two songs – one from Leonard Cohen and one from Bob Dylan.

Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan Journeys between poetry and song

Two men with many similarities in their backgrounds but also big differences, two journeys which both mirrored and paralleled each other, each an admirer of the other. Both heroes of mine.

Leonard Cohen

Born into one of Montreal’s most influential families, with a strong sense of who they were – ‚a messianic child hood‘ told I was a descendant of Aaaron, the great high priest‘. Very aware of his Jewish roots, beliefs and culture. Moved to Montreal’s Little Portugal neighbourhood as a youth, read his poetry in the clubs.

• 1951 – enrolled at McGill University. Won poetry prize.
• 1954 – published first poems in magazine – CIV/n
• 1956 – first collection published – ‚Let us compare mythologies‘
• 1961 – second collection – The Spice box of the earth. Acclaimed as ‚probably the best young poet in English Canada‘
• Moved to Hydra, lived and wrote there with breaks in Montreal and NY, during 60s

• 1963 – published collection – The favourite game
• 1964 – published novel – Flowers for Hitler
• 1966 – published novel – Beautiful losers – and poems – Parasites of heavenDrifted into writing more songs and subsequently performing them. Moved to NY in 1967. Recorded Songs of Leonard Cohen. – followed by Songs from a room (1969) and Songs of love and hate – (1971) Since then, his career has moved between music and literature, with fallow gaps, has covered many musical styles and included effective retirement, and a return from retirement resulting (in part at least) from the loss of his savings to a dishonest manager.
• Themes
• His early songs were written for other people, or at least first recorded by others. Strong creative relationship with Judy Collins who recorded Suzanne, among others, encouraged him and effectively introduced him to the stage (parallel with Dylan/Baez although Collins was one of the few muses he did not have an affair with).
• Much acclaim but also controversy, not least because of sexually graphic passages.

• religion and faith. Recurring Judeao Christian imagery. Buddhist influences (spent several years as a Buddhist monk). He has drawn from Jewish religious and cultural imagery throughout his career. Examples include „Story of Isaac“, and „Who by Fire“, the words and melody of which echo the Unetaneh Tokef, an 11th-century liturgical poem recited on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. Broader Jewish themes sound throughout the album Various Positions. „Hallelujah“, which has music as a secondary theme, begins by evoking the biblical King David composing a song that „pleased the Lord“ and continues with references to Bathsheba and Samson. The lyrics of „Whither Thou Goest“, performed by him and released in his album Live in London, are adapted from the Bible ( Ruth 1:16–17, King James Version). „If It Be Your Will“ also has a strong air of religious resignation.
• sex and love. In later years said that he had always looked to a woman to rescue him and meet his needs. Wrote both tenderly and graphically about his loves and his lovers. „Suzanne“ mixes a wistful type of love song with a religious meditation, themes that are also mixed in „Joan of Arc“. „Famous Blue Raincoat“ is from the point of view of a man whose marriage has been broken by his wife’s infidelity with his close friend, and is written in the form of a letter to that friend. „Everybody Knows“ is about sexual relationships during the AIDS crisis of the 1980s in which „the naked man and woman are just a shining artefact of the past.“
• Words/literature/writing – references to the process, the gift etc in may songs
• Depression – he suffers/has suffered and there are many references to depression, suicide, self harm etc — eg „Please Don’t Pass Me By“ and „Tonight Will Be Fine“. „Seems So Long Ago, Nancy“ and „Dress Rehearsal Rag“
• Politics – war, social justice, Arab Israeli conflict etc – songs such as ‚The Old Revolution‘, ‚Democracy‘, ‚ Anthem‘, ‚Lover, Lover Lover‘, and even his cover of ‚The Partisan‘Many affairs, some longer lasting relationships (including those with Suzanne and Marianne and with Dominique Isserman. Rebecca de Mornay, Anjani Thomas). Two children – Adam and Lorca. Strong links with family and childhood friends – Mort Rosengarten. Poems
• Still recording, writing and touring. Apparently with less sex and drugs now …
• Personal

• Going Home (recorded)
• Take this waltz – English adaptation of Lorca poem recorded for an album marking 50^th anniversary of his death)
• Dance me to the end of love
• Poem (from Let us compare mythologies)
• Suzanne
• True love leaves no traces (from Death of a ladies man)Born Duluth, raised Hibbing, Minnesota, to Abram and Beatty Zimmerman, part of the area’s small but close knit Jewish community. A music fan from early years – blues, country, rock and roll; formed several bands while in High School. Played piano with Bobby Vee while at school, under the name Elston Gunn. Enrolled at University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, switched to American folk music‘. … ‚The thing about rock’n’roll is that for me anyway it wasn’t enough … There were great catch-phrases and driving pulse rhythms … but the songs weren’t serious or didn’t reflect life in a realistic way. I knew that when I got into folk music, it was more of a serious type of thing. The songs are filled with more despair, more sadness, more triumph, more faith in the supernatural, much deeper feelings‘ Dropped out after a year and went to NY, hoping to meet Woody Guthrie. Spent time with Rambling Jack Elliot as a result, played in Greenwich Village. First album ‚Bob Dylan‘ a mix of covers and two original songs. Also recorded as Blind Boy Grunt and, for piano sessions, as Bob Landy. Played harmonica on album Jack Elliott under pseudonym Tedham Porterhouse. Legally changed name to Bob Dylan in 62, appeared in BBC programme, singing Blowing in the Wind, met Martin Carthy and learnt new material, performed at the Troubadour. Hailed as a prophet, ‚the voice of his generation‘ etc – which pushed him into retreat – „I’m just a singer, a songwriter“Themes and highlights
• Songs characterized by strength of lyrics, roots in US and also British and Irish folk music. Hailed by many as ‚poetic‘.
• 1963 Freewheelin‘ Bob Dylan –several protest songs, heavily influenced by Guthrie and Pete Seeger. Also love songs and jokey talking blues. The start of other artists covering his songs. Joan Baez recorded his songs, became huge supporter, introduced him around, they became lovers (cf Cohen and Collins).
• Became involved in the Dinkytown folk music circuit, started using the name Bob Dylan, because of influence of Dylan Thomas. Identity issues maybe? – in 2004 interview said „You’re born, you know, the wrong names, wrong parents. I mean, that happens. You call yourself what you want to call yourself. This is the land of the free.“
• Bob Dylan

• Protest – although he seemed to resent the label, he was the key protest singer of the sixties and continued to revert to politically and socially aware songs over many years – eg George Jackson (about death of black panther, Hollis Brown, Hurricane, )
• Love songs and relationship break ups. (married and divorced twice, several relationships, 5 children)
• Humour
• Christian period – Slow train comin
• Continued dialogue with religion – stays close to his Jewish roots, observing‘ Jewish festivals, still sings his born again‘ songs and says he is ‚a true believer, but also has said „Here’s the thing with me and the religious thing. This is the flat-out truth: I find the religiosity and philosophy in the music. I don’t find it anywhere else.“
• Expanding musical styles, from folk to jazz, rock and roll to hillbilly
• Man of mystery – rumours about Dylan abounded, he has never given a straight answer to a straight question, has changed his musical persona, refused to be pigeon holed
• Reinventing songs – live performances of familiar songs can be mystifying, so keen is he to avoid predictability
• The rolling tour – still going
• Work with others – the Wilburys, the Band, the Dead,
• Film work – a few acting roles
• Identity as an artist – renaissance man?
• „Bob freed your mind the way Elvis freed your body. He showed us that just because music was innately physical did not mean that it was anti-intellectual“ (Bruce Springsteen)
• Wikipedia extract – ‚Literary critic Christopher Ricks published a 500-page analysis of Dylan’s work, placing him in the context of Eliot, Keats and Tennyson, [364] and claiming that Dylan was a poet worthy of the same close analysis. [365] Former British poet laureate Sir Andrew Motion argued that his lyrics should be studied in schools. [366] Since 1996, academics have lobbied the Swedish Academy to award Dylan the Nobel Prize in Literature‚
• Accused of plagiarism, not least by Joni Mitchell – his response, that this is ‚part of the tradition‘
• Lyrics

• Girl of the North country
• Masters of war
• All along the watchtower
• Talking world war III blues /Tambourine man (recorded)

Bob Johnston, the producer of a slew of classic 196os albums – including Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde, Johnny Cash’s At Folsom Prison and Leonard Cohen’s Songs from a Room – has died, aged 83. Johnston passed away peacefully in a Nashville hospice on Friday.

The man who produced Blonde on Blonde defined his work modestly: ‘All I did was turn the tapes on’

Leonard Cohen, however, said there was more to it than that: “Bob Johnston was very sophisticated. His hospitality was extremely refined. It wasn’t just a matter of turning on the machines. He created an atmosphere in the studio that really invited you to do your best, stretch out, do another take, an atmosphere that was free from judgment, free from criticism, full of invitation, full of affirmation. Just the way he’d move while you were singing: he’d dance for you. So, it wasn’t all just as laissez faire as that. Just as art is the concealment of art, laissez faire is the concealment of tremendous generosity that he was sponsoring in the studio.”

Al Kooper, who played keyboards on Blonde on Blonde, credited Johnston with creating the conditions in which the album could be made, specifically in persuading Dylan to record it in Nashville. “The credit has to go to Bob Johnston. It was his idea. He had tried to get Dylan to record in Nashville in late 1965. He knew about the chemistry. And I also think he felt more comfortable there because he lived there. And he knew all the musicians intimately.”

Johnston left Columbia in the early 70s, dissatisfied with his earnings, going freelance as a producer. He quickly scored a UK No 1 album with Lindisfarne’s Fog on the Tyne. In latter years, he produced infrequently, usually with acts of his own generation or older, including Willie Nelson and Carl Perkins.

Sources: THE GURADIAN online from Monday 17 August 2015

COHEN ABOUT SEEING DYLAN LIVE IN CONCERT 2008; read in ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE

You and Bob Dylan were in St. John’s at the same time, playing consecutive shows. I went to his concert. It was terrific. I’ve been to many Dylan concerts. This one, there was a walkway from the hotel to the auditorium, so you could enter into this private area, the people who had boxes. We were in one of those boxes. First of all, I’ve never been in a private box in an auditorium. That was fun. And a lot of members of the band came. But it was very loud. Fortunately, Raphael, our drummer, had earplugs, and he distributed them. Because our music is quite soft and that’s what we’ve been listening to for three or four months.

As Sharon Robinson said, Bob Dylan has a secret code with his audience. If someone came from the moon and watched it they might wonder what was going on. In this particular case he had his back to one half of the audience and was playing the organ, beautifully I might say, and just running through the songs. Some were hard to recognize. But nobody cared. That’s not what they were there for and not what I was there for. Something else was going on, which was a celebration of some kind of genius that is so apparent and so clear and has touched people so deeply that all they need is some kind of symbolic unfolding of the event. It doesn’t have to be the songs. All it has to be is: remember that song and what it did to you. It’s a very strange event.

However, in a 2009 Rolling Stone interview, Dylan claimed that he doesn’t see Cohen, or any other singer-songwriters, perform these days:

Do you get any time to sit in on concerts? Like would you go see someone like Leonard Cohen? Dylan: I know what Leonard does. I wouldn’t need to go see him. I still go see plays. I go to the symphony because I’d be hearing threads and things that are new to me that maybe would influence me in some kind of way. … I mean I would hear things harmonically that I might think, „Oh, well that’s not such a bad idea“ or maybe that kind of thing. But I wouldn’t go see anybody.

Dylan and Cohen were each signed to Columbia Records by John Hammond. Recording in the studio soon after signing, Cohen started singing and Hammond said on the intercom: „Watch out Dylan!“ Like Dylan, Cohen briefly left the label, but soon returned.

 Leonard Cohen & Bob Dylan are Lyricists says Ted Burke in:

Bob Dylan Is Not A Poet by Ted Burke (2007)

Cohen tends the words he uses more than Dylan does; his language is strange and abstruse at times, but beyond the oddity of the existences he sets upon his canvas there exist an element that is persuasive, alluring, masterfully wrought with a writing, from the page alone, that blends all the attendant aspects of Cohen’s stressed worldliness– sexuality, religious ecstasy, the burden of his whiteness– into a whole , subtly argued, minutely detailed, expertly layered with just so many fine, exacting touches of language. His songs, which I fine the finest of the late 20th century in English–only Dylan, Costello, Mitchell and Paul Simon have comparable bodies of work–we find more attention given to the effect of every word and phrase that’s applied to his themes, his story lines. In many ways I would say Cohen is a better lyricist than Dylan because he’s a better writer over all. Unlike Dylan, who has been indiscriminate for the last thirty years about the quality of work he’s released, there is scarcely anything in Cohen’s songbook you would characterize as a cast-off.

Ted Burke

Bob Dylan Is Not A Poet by Ted Burke (Ted Burke – Like It Or Not: September 6, 2007)

• Cohen went to Nashville in 1968, not long after Dylan recorded there.

• Dylan and Phil Spector visited Cohen backstage in 1975. in 1971, Spector co-produced Dylan’s songs for The Concert For Bangla Desh. Spector produced Cohen’s 1977 album, Death Of A Ladies‘ Man (originally released on Warner Brothers,) with Dylan and Allen Ginsberg singing background vocals on one track. Soon after, Dylan was reportedly involved with a friend of Cohen’s named Malka Marom.

• Both spent time with Andy Warhol’s Factory crowd, especially Nico. Nico war jedoch mehr Lou Reed zugewandt und Cohen liess sie geradezu „abblitzen“. Angeblich war er ihr zu klein. Viel größer ist Bob Dylan auch nicht 🙂

Der Begriff des  Cuesheets findet man auch in der Computersprache und hat mit Metadaten zu tun. In der Konzertbranche ist es das, was Musiker und Techniker als „Einsatzplan“, bzw. „Ablaufplan“ eines Konzertes ansehen.

Zumeist sind sie mit Tape auf dem Bühnenboden befestigt, sodass alle Beteiligten wissen, wie der Songabaluf ist.

Dylan hielt sich nicht immer daran, bis er irgendwann einmal keine mehr einsetzte. Cohen verwendete sie bei der letzten Tour als eine Art roter Faden ,

CUESHEET/ DYLAN 1996

CUESHEET COHEN/ WORLDTOUR 2008-2010

NEW YORK CITY & Bob Dylan’s GreenwichVillage.

,,I waved goodbyc, stcpped out onto the hard snow. The biting wind hit mc in thc face. At last I was here in ! New York City,“ beschreibt Dylan seine Ankunft in seiner Autobiographie in New York am 24. Januar 1961. Von da an wurde New York und hier insbesondere das Künstlerviertel Greenwich Village zum Dreh- und Angekpunkt seiner Karriere.

Reisereportage aus dem Jahr 1998 für die Zeitschrift TELECRAN

Von da an spielte er regelmäßig in den Literaten-Cafés wie z.B. Gerde’s Folk City in der  West Fourth Street; The Gaslight und The Commons und im The Bitter End and the Village Gate in der Bleecker Street. 1964 nahm er mit Suze Rotolo ein Apartment in der 161 West Fourth Street. Später lebte er auch im Earle Hotel, Washington Square mit Joan Baez und 1965 zog er ins Chelsea Hotel mit Sara Lownds und ihrer Tochter Maria.

Bei seiner Rückkehr aus Woodstock 1969 lebte er in der 94 MacDougal Street. Zur Vorbereitung für die Rolling Thunder revue lebte er in der Houston Street und dort im Gramercy Park Hotel.

Uptown befinden sich die Columbia’s Studio A in der Seventh Avenue wio Dylan die ersten fund Alben aufnahm. In der Carnegie Hall hatte er seinen ersten großen Live-Auftritt. Im Madison Square Garden fanden sowohl The Concert for Bangla Desh (1971) und die 30. Bühnenjubiläums-Party 1992 statt.

Schließlich gibts noch unzählige literarische Referenzen an New York wie z.B. in: „Talking New York“; „Hard Times In New York Town“; „Down The Highway“; „Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream“, „Spanish Harlem Incident“, „Positively Fourth Street“; „Tangled Up In Blue“, „Joey“, „Hurricane“, „Sara“ and „Where Are You Tonight? (Journey Thru Dark Heat). – Im folgenden sind 15 markante Punkte und Adressen New Yorks benannt, die mit Dylans Leben im Big Apple zu tun haben.

l. Bleecker Street

…connects the West and EastVillages, running from the intersection of Eighth Avenue and Hudson Street to the Bowery, at which end of Bleecker Street was,until2006,CBGB’s.

2. TheCafeWha?

…hosted early shows by JimiHendrix and The Velvet Underground äs well äs the young Dylan and the legions of folk Singers that populated The Village in the early-’60s. Legend has it that Dylan’s first recorded onstage words in New York were taped here: „Just got here from the west. Name’s Bob Dylan. I’d like to do a few songs. Can I?“ The Cafe Wha? was then owned by Manny Roth, uncle of Van Halen’s David Lee Roth.

3. 161 West 4th Street

Dylan rented his first apartment here, moving in with girlfriend Suze Rotolo in Decemberl961.

4. Jones Street

Dylan and Suze Rotolo were pictured here, walking towards West Fourth Street, for the iconic cover of 1963’s The Freeivheelin’Bob Dylan.

5. One Sheridan Square

Suze Rotolo lived here on the third floor in the early-’60s. Miki Isaacson, with whom Dylan often stayed, lived on the fourth floor, and The Cafe Socicty folk i clubwasinthebasement.

6. TheWhite Horse Tavern

..onHudsonandllth,wasoneofthe \ Village’s mostfamouswateringholes, i whosepatronsinthe’50sand’60s | includedhard-drinkingwriterlytypes like Dylan Thomas and Jack Kerouac. The Clancy Brothers were favourites there and Dylan was also a regulär.

7. HotelEarle

Dylan regularly stayed here af ter ] he split from Suze Rotolo, often with i JoanBaez.

8. Gerde’sFolkCity

located at 11 West 4th Street, was where Dylan played his first Professional gigon Aprilll, 1961, openingfor John Lee Hooker. Dylan’s appearance here on September 26,1961 was the show famously reviewed in the New York Times by Robert Shelton, and where Suze Rotolo first saw Bob.

9. The Bitter End

This successful Bleecker St club was i knownforitsTuesdaynight | ‚hootenanies’intheearly-‚öOs.It i becameafavouritehauntofDylan’s i when he started hanging out again in j the Village in the summer of 1975, prior i totheRollingThunderRevue.

10. TheVillageGate

at the intersection of Thompson and l Bleecker Street, this was primarily a ! home for jazz greats like John Coltrane, i Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie and l Nina Simone, although it was identified ! more in the early ’60s with the folk i boom. Odetta and ArethaFranklin ; madetheir New York debuts here. l

11. 94 MacDougal Street l Dylanmovedintoatownhouseatthis ; addressin!970,whenheleft i Woodstock.Inevitably,fanswere ! drawn to MacDougal Street, to Dylan’s i evident dismay. He was particularly i houndedbytheinfamouslyobsessedAJ ! Weberman, towhomanoutragcdBob

ended upadministeringasoundpublic i thrashing.

12 IzzyYoung’s Folklore Center

„Thecitadelof Americanfolkmusic…it | hadanantiquegrace,likeanancient i chapel,“ Dylan wrote in Chronicles. Izzy i Youngfounded his Folklore Center in i 19S7 and the young Dylan was a regulär ! there, listeningtoYoung’svast i collectionof recordings, studyingsong i foliosandhistoricjournals.Youngalso ! promoted Dylan’s concert at Carnegie l Chapter Hall in November 1961, a month ! before Dylan recorded his debut album. i There were 52 people in the audience.

13. Kettle Of Fish

Populär hang-out for folkies in the early i ’60s, when Dylan would have been seen ; therealot.

14. The Gaslight Cafe

Acoffeehouseinthebasementofllö | MacDougal Street, the Gaslight had hosted readings by Beat poets Allen i Ginsberg and Gregory Corso, but by the l early- ’60s it was one of the main venues ! for folk music. One of Dylan’s early gigs l there was taped, and, afteryearsof I bootlegged versions, released in August i 2005zsLiveAtTheGaslightl962.

15. Chelsea Hotel, 23^rd Street.