Leonard Cohen: THE COMPLETE ALBUMS COLLECTION

NEW YORK, Sept. 20, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Spanning 42 years of studio and concert albums released from 1967 to 2009, THE COMPLETE ALBUMS COLLECTION box set gathers together a lifetime of recordings from Leonard Cohen.  Every album has been remastered from the original analogue master tapes.  Cohen celebrates his 77th birthday on September 21, 2011.

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THE COMPLETE ALBUMS COLLECTION contains all 17 of Cohen's albums, each in a mini-LP replica CD jacket of the original release. Along with these, a lavish 36-page booklet will include all discographical annotations and recording information, as well as a brilliant 1,300-word essay by Pico Iyer.  This limited edition box set is available now for pre-order via www.LeonardCohen.com in advance of the October 11th release date through Columbia/Legacy, a division of SONY MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT.  

From the 1960s to the '00s, the transcendent beauty of Leonard Cohen unfolds over the course of THE COMPLETE ALBUMS COLLECTION.  Individually, the 17 albums in the box set comprise:

• SONGS OF LEONARD COHEN (released December 1967);
• SONGS FROM A ROOM (April 1969);
• SONGS OF LOVE AND HATE (March 1971);
• LIVE SONGS (April 1973);
• NEW SKIN FOR THE OLD CEREMONY (August 1974);
• DEATH OF A LADIES' MAN (November 1977);
• RECENT SONGS (September 1979);
• VARIOUS POSITIONS (February 1985);
• I'M YOUR MAN (February 1988);
• THE FUTURE (November 1992);
• COHEN LIVE – LEONARD COHEN IN CONCERT (June 1994);
• FIELD COMMANDER COHEN: TOUR OF 1979 (February 2001);
• TEN NEW SONGS (October 2001);
• DEAR HEATHER (October 2004);
• LIVE IN LONDON (March 2009);
• LIVE AT THE ISLE OF WIGHT 1970 (October 2009);
• SONGS FROM THE ROAD (October 2009).

"Cohen sits outside every category," writes Iyer, "and throws together high culture and street slang, Buddha and the blues, so you never know what's coming next... He's lived in Nashville, in L.A. (and in the high dark mountains behind L.A. at the Mount Baldy Zen Center) as well as on the carless Greek island of Hydra, known for its donkeys and faraway monasteries. He's inspired filmmakers from Rainer Werner Fassbinder to Oliver Stone and acted as the head of Interpol on Miami Vice.  He's written a classic Old Testament book of psalms and sung on Duets with Elton John. Everything you know of him is wrong."

Pico Iyer, who annotated Columbia/Legacy's The Essential Leonard Cohen double-CD collection nearly a decade ago, is a confidante of Cohen, who personally chose him for the job.  The Oxford-born and Eton-educated author, essayist, novelist, biographer, and world-renowned travel writer has contributed articles to Conde Nast Traveler, Civilization, the New York Review of Books, Sports Illustrated, and the Times of London.  Iyer's books, which have been translated into many languages and published around the world, include Video Night in Kathmandu, The Lady and the Monk, The Global Soul, the novels Cuba and the Night and Abandon.

As Iyer makes clear, Cohen's four decades-plus odyssey at Columbia Records is impossible to categorize or pin down.  Prolific and productive, he has shepherded at least three generations of music fans along on his journeys.  Sabbaticals and hiatuses have ensued, always marked by album comebacks and concert tours that have left his followers breathless and awestruck.

"You'll meet the earnest troubadour," writes Iyer, "with 'one hand on a hexagram and one hand on a girl' and you'll see the grave old philosopher who could be met on the backstreets of Jerusalem.  You'll hear the sound of a soul, alone, raising a cry to the heavens, and that of the silky man of the world accompanied by a chorus of female voices.  You'll think you're listening to one of the great ironists of rock 'n' roll -- 'We met when we were almost young' -- and then you'll hear him calling out for surrender."

www.legacyrecordings.com

SOURCE Legacy Recordings