The Isle of Wight Festival, created in 1968, reached its peak in 1970, when nearly 600,000 spectators gathered on this piece of land in the south of the United Kingdom. Fifty years later, Europe 1 looks back on the various concerts given for what was, one year after Woodstock, one of the last great hippie meetings. This Thursday, Europe 1 takes a look at the story of a legend in contemporary music and poetry: Leonard Cohen.
He was called the godfather of melancholy or the poet of pessimism, which made him smile. "A pessimist", he said, "is someone who waits for the rain… I am already soaked". A poet, then, but also a writer and, somewhat in spite of himself, a musician.
Magic from the first notes
It is around 4 a.m. on the Isle of Wight. Monday, August 31, 1970 begins in the rain, Jimi Hendrix has just finished his show in an unhealthy atmosphere. Lots of objects were thrown, including on fire; the roof of the stage almost burned down. Few artists would have dared to succeed him, but this one is of a very particular kind.
When we call him, he sleeps peacefully in his trailer ... Anyway, he refuses to go on stage until we have installed an electric piano worthy of the name. The first thing he does before entering this unforgettable concert is to ask the hundreds of thousands of festival-goers in the dark to strike a simple match to find out who and where they are. In an instant, the multitude becomes a village. Shapely beige safari jacket, 3-day-old beard, disheveled hair, kilos of dark circles under the eyes, the man does not look like much… And yet, the magic operates from the first notes.
Leonard Cohen and his "army", The Army, the sweetly ironic name he gave to the group that accompanied him. The title just above, Suzanne , was her first big hit.
In Greece, from poetry to music
In the early 1960s, Leonard Cohen was still looking for his way. He is a poet and writer recognized outside the borders of Canada, where he was born, in Montreal. But he doesn't make a living from his art, at least not decently.
So this son of a Jewish merchant of Polish origin made a courageous choice: he bought for 1,500 dollars, inherited from his grandmother, a small fisherman's house on the Island of Hydra, south of Athens. No running water, no electricity, and yet, for a decade, it is in this atmosphere of luminous asceticism that he composed some of the pieces that will make his glory. Next to him, his muse, whom he met on the spot: a Norwegian named Marianne Ihlen.
Life in Greece is frugal but Cohen must find other means of subsistence. He has been playing the guitar since his adolescence, he sticks his lyrics to it. Judy Collins, one of the biggest folk stars of the time, comes across it thanks to a Canadian friend. She created Suzanne in 1966 and pushed the poet on stage and in the studio. Leonard Cohen is 32 years old, and his life will never be the same again.
A first album shunned in the United States
The birth of the first album will be chaotic. Six months, three studios, two producers… The Canadian can't do it. It's not his world, he can't find the right words - a shame - to express what he wants to see recorded. Everything is jostling. The arrangements are too sophisticated. He falls in love with Nico, the ex-singer of Velvet Underground, throws songs, composes others ...
Finally, Songs From Leonard Cohen was released in December 1967. The reception was freezing in the United States. Sales do not take off, and the new singer swears that we will not take him again. Fortunately, the historic producer of Bob Dylan or Johnny Cash falls under the spell. He persuades Leonard Cohen to settle near Nashville and employs seasoned musicians. Two masterpieces are born: Songs From A Room and Songs Of Love And Hate .
If the American public remains unmoved, on the other side of the Atlantic, the reception is enthusiastic. We love this mix of disenchanted poetry and surprisingly catchy melodies despite their dark aridity. We are in 1971, and Leonard Cohen sings one of the peaks of his discography, magnified by sumptuous strings: Avalanche .
At the time, those who didn't like Leonard Cohen laughed at him by pretending that he offered razor blades with his records. This does not prevent him from establishing himself as a major figure at 35, an age that most of his friends do not even want to know.
The 1970s slump
Cohen finally gets his revenge, but he suffers: he particularly hates going on stage. For him, it's like a wedding where you don't know anyone and you don't remember anything the next day. For the anecdote, two days before the Isle of Wight, he performed in a psychiatric hospital in London where he found the public more attentive than elsewhere!
Around him, everything changes. His muse Marianne gave way to Suzanne Elrod, who gave him 2 children, Adam and Lorca. Artistically, Cohen goes around in circles, experiments… He enters the studio with the legendary producer (and notorious psychopath) Phil Spector, for what can be considered the most magnificent failure of his career. The punk movement declares it old-fashioned; the 1970s ended in a rather gloomy climate. To make matters worse, his union with Suzanne is shattered. Leonard Cohen then saw one of the most unknown periods of his existence.
Between 1980 and 1984, the singer, now a Buddhist, made frequent trips back and forth to the south of France. It is there, in the Luberon, that Suzanne and the 2 children settled in Bonnieux, a magnificent village near Apt. Cohen, with notorious infidelities, is not welcome in the old farmhouse and his ex-partner forbids him access. To see his children, he takes up residence not at the hotel, but in a caravan at the end of the path that leads to the family home.
The hymn "Hallelujah"
From these very special years emerged what is arguably Leonard Cohen's most famous song today. When it was released in 1984, hardly anyone noticed it. It's Bob Dylan himself who brings it to life on stage, then John Cale, and finally Jeff Buckley, who signed the definitive version in the early 90s and made it a sort of John Lennon's Imagine equivalent. . But it is Leonard Cohen who composed this hymn with the universal title: Hallelujah .
Hallelujah , a magnificent symbol of Leonard Cohen's second career, which he began at over 50. After having hit rock bottom, the poet is rehabilitated and, it must be said, notably thanks to the French magazine Les Inrockuptibles , whose cover album of Cohen I'm Your Man, with prestigious guests like REM or Lloyd Cole, has had an international impact.
Between 1988 and 2016, the Canadian will release eight albums, all celebrated by a fervent audience. Cohen becomes in a way the dean of the dandies, hat, dark costume, elegance of appearance, elegance of purpose. And then this cavernous voice, without hope but not without irony, which he used to the end, on November 7, 2016, victim of leukemia at 82 years old. His son, Adam Cohen, the former boy from Bonnieux, perpetuates his memory while leading his own successful career.
Find all the other episodes of our series "The Isle of Wight Festival, 50 years later" :
> Episode 1: the last notes of Morrison's Doors
> Episode 2: Mighty Baby, talent without glory
> Episode 3: the unexpected concert of Brazilian exiles
> Episode 4: the Rory Gallagher revelation
> Episode 5: Tony Joe White's springboard
> Episode 6: Joni Mitchell's legendary concert
> Episode 7: the second Woodstock of Ten Years After
> Episode 8: The Who reign supreme at home
> Episode 9: the awakening of Sly and the Family Stone
> Episode 10: Free, a group touched by grace and then by misfortune
> Episode 11: Donovan, the "flower power" musician par excellence
> Episode 12: The Pentangle, the unclassifiable group
> Episode 13: the magical and tragic fate of Jimi Hendrix