Canadian singer, songwriter Leonard Cohen dead at 82

By Barry Ellsworth

TRENTON, Ont. (AA) – Music legend Leonard Cohen died Thursday at the age of 82.

The Canadian singer and songwriter was a global phenomenon who played to sellout crowds regardless of where he performed.

The death of the Montreal native was confirmed by his music label Sony Music Canada and reported on his official Facebook fan page.

“It is with profound sorrow we report that legendary poet, songwriter and artist, Leonard Cohen has passed away,” said the post on social media. “We have lost one of music’s most revered and prolific visionaries.”

Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre will have flags lowered to half-mast to honor Cohen, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Canada’s national newscaster.

“Tonight we lost one of our greatest ambassador[s] and icon Leonard Cohen,” Coderre tweeted. “Flags will be half mas[t].”

Rolling Stone magazine called Cohen the “dark eminence among a small pantheon of extremely influential singer-songwriters to emerge in the Sixties and early Seventies. Only Bob Dylan exerted a more profound influence upon his generation.”

One example of that influence is that while Cohen rarely had a song on the rock charts, his music was listened to everywhere. His “Hallelujah” recording has been covered hundreds of times since he released it in 1984, the CBC reported.

Cohen ended his last world tour, aptly named Grand Tour, on Dec. 21, 2013, a five-year circuit that saw him play 387 venues.

But soon afterward, his health began to fail.

“Among many other things, he had multiple fractures of the spine,” his son Adam, told Rolling Stone.

Nonetheless, Cohen released his last album, “You Want It Darker” on Oct. 21.

In October, Cohen said in an interview with the New Yorker magazine that he was ready to die and he cared not for what others thought of his work.

“As I approach the end of my life, I have even less and less interest in examining what have got to be very superficial evaluations or opinions about the significance of one’s life or one’s work,” Cohen said in the interview. “I was never given to it when I was healthy, and I am less given to it now.

“I am ready to die. I hope it is not too uncomfortable.”

A memorial service is planned in Los Angeles but a date has yet been sett, it said on the Facebook page.