Cohen (Leonard)

Canadian singer, met in November 2008

Ruined by his former manager, the 73 year-old  Leonard Cohen went back on tour in 2008 after a 15-year absence.    The man they once called the new Bob Dylan is back with a new spring in his step.  Double-breasted suit and old Sicilian-style sombrero: with a touch of malice, the poet (Flowers for Hitler, 1964) who became a singer late in life (album The Songs of Leonard Cohen, in 1968, aged 34) covered forty years of classics with a juvenile grace: Bird on a Wire, So Long Marianne, Suzanne, Dance Me to the End of Love and others, such as Chant du partisan. After a few dates in the summer, the Buddhist with other-worldly prophecies stopped over in Paris. On November 26, 2008, he played the Olympia in the presence of the presidential couple. The only privilege given them was a VIP pass, with no promise of a meeting. Finally, Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni, a fan like her friend Marianne Faithfull, who was also in the audience that evening, were able to greet him backstage under the watchful gaze of his son Adam Cohen, also a singer.