© 2021 Marine Lanier & Laure Barbosa

“If I knew where the good songs came from, I’d go there more often”

Leonard Cohen, who liked to repeat these words, left us in November 2016 at the age of 82. In a rich fifty-year career, the one whom Dylan called the “Kafka of the Blues” had plenty of time to share his sublime poetry with us through his incredible songs and their beautiful compositions. His artistic legacy is endless, and his important place in the history of folk music cannot be understated.

An entire generation was influenced by songs like Suzanne, So Long Marianne, The Partisan and Bird on a Wire. This generation is of course that of the 1960s, who lived through a period of hitherto unseen cultural liberation and social emancipation. Today, Leonard Cohen has passed through the obstacles of time to reach a new audience. Such is the case of Renaud Brustlein, who performs under the name of H-Burns. He writes and performs today thanks to Cohen’s heritage. He grew up immersed in Cohen’s words and music thanks to his parents, and this gave him the will to pursue his job.

The idea of transmission is very strong when you are a musician, to give back everything that one has been gifted with, and to share with those who follow an artistic heritage that is moving, inspiring and fundamental. Passing the torch on to the next generation, while reviving the memories of those who grew up with Cohen’s songs, this is H-Burns’ new aspiration.

At a point in his career where the singer, born in the French Alps, feels like getting back to basics, focusing on an artist who has haunted his life, this project is more than just a musical project that H-Burns wants to stage. He wishes to put on an intimate show, to be played in theaters, that would revisit the first ten years of Leonard Cohen’s musical career, from Songs, his first album, through to 1974’s New Skin for the Old Ceremony.

Throughout this initiatory journey, H-Burns will follow in the footsteps of the poet, travelling to the places where he lived and wrote, from the cafés and bagel shops of the Plateau Mont Royal; to downtown Montreal where he lived his first sleepless nights; from the Chelsea Hotel, which Cohen immortalized in song; to the hills of Los Angeles, where he resided until the end of his life, and where, deep in the San Gabriel mountains, lies the monastery where Cohen spent a period of happy reclusion.

A memorial crossing, this musical tribute will devote itself to touring. In support of this concert, H-Burns will record an album of cover songs, staying true to the conditions of the 1960s, by recording directly to tape, so as to keep true to the soul of the time and to preserve the spirit of Leonard Cohen.

“You know who I am, you’ve stared at the sun, well I am the one who loves, changing from nothing to one”, Cohen sings in Songs from a Room. With this ambitious project by H-Burns, we will be thrown into an era and a life were stories deserve being told, following the principles of the oral tradition and the transmission of a rich cultural heritage.