Passing: Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen, the hugely influential Canadian singer and songwriter whose work spanned five decades, died at the age of 82.

Wrote Rolling Stone of the Westmount, Quebec born Cohen:

Cohen was 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, and perhaps only Paul Simon and fellow Canadian Joni Mitchell equaled him as a song poet. Cohen's haunting bass voice, nylon-stringed guitar patterns, Greek-chorus backing vocals shaped evocative songs that dealt with love and hate, sex and spirituality, war and peace, ecstasy and depression. He was also the rare artist of his generation to enjoy artistic success into his Eighties, releasing his final album, You Want It Darker, earlier this year.

More from the Montreal Gazette on his life and on his passing

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