Nancy White's Leonard Cohen Tribute in Toronto (May 17)

Information on other get-togethers before the next big Event
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jarkko
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Nancy White's Leonard Cohen Tribute in Toronto (May 17)

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Nancy White's Leonard Cohen Tribute is being held on May 17 at Hugh's Room in Toronto.
Hugh's Room is a large folk club, very nice venue. Check Nancy's gigs at
http://www.borealisrecords.com/g_white.html (The Best in Canadian Folk Music website!)
Jarkko

Nancy tells us about the tribute:

" Here's the scoop on the Leonard Cohen Tribute at Hugh's Room in
Toronto.

It's going to be May 17, a dark and stormy Saturday night.

Here's who's singing: Dave Matheson, Marie-Lynn Hammond, Danny Marks,
Bob Johnston, Mary Kelly, and me, Nancy White. Here's who's reading poems:
Holmes Hooke, Heriberto Pages. Possibly some audience members.

I shall have the honour of hosting, and my plan is to scatter the
evening with evidence of Leonard Lite. For unlike the Europeans, we
Canadians know that our Leonard can be hilarious by times.

Holmes Hook and I are busy working out the details of the evening,
choosing the judges for the Suzanne look-alike contest, preparing the tea,
slicing the oranges, ironing our black clothes, meditating. Things like
that.

Here is a bit of information about the participants.

Dave Matheson - Moxy Frûvous boy -- fine solo album ("David
Matheson") -- just sang the songs in "Goodbye,Tim Hardin".

Marie-Lynn Hammond - Interviewed Mr.Cohen on "Musical Friends" and
is prepared to talk about it -- composer of "When Leonard Cohen Sings" - may
do a Leonard song en francais, how cool is that?

Danny Marks - once played Leonard in a film with Omar Sharif, so
even if he weren't a fabulous guitar player, would be in like a dirty shirt
-- does a Leonard song rockabilly style .

Bob Johnston - my piano player - sang the Austin Lounge Lizards'
song "Leonard Cohen's Dayjob" to perfection at Cohen 2000 in Montreal - has
loads of angst but keeps it to himself.

Mary Kelly - beautiful voice - a popular guest at Norm Hacking's
Tranzac series.

Nancy White - very deep - composer of "Leonard Cohen's Never Gonna
Bring My Groceries In" and "Get Down Offa That" (a plea to Mr.Cohen to come
down from Mt.Baldy, because there's loads of monks in the world, but not
many men who actually love women and we need him - punctual.

Holmes Hooke - fine poet himself - almost as deep as Nancy - crowd
control skills - Irish accent.

Heriberto Pages (pronounced Pa-hess) - published Cuban poet who
translated a number of Cohen's poems into Spanish - teaches at Ryerson - muy
profundo.

So, that's the story. You should know that a couple of dozen
Cohenheads have reserved tickets already. We think it'll be a good night.
C'mon down! Show starts at 8.30. No lightweights please.

One more thing: A good way to prepare for this show would be to
immerse yourself in the amazing Finnish website <leonardcohenfiles.com>.
Click on "blackening pages" to read the latest poems, and see his sketches
and some first versions of songs. You won't believe it. His handwriting is
just as bad as yours!

Hugh's Room is at 2261 Dundas West, just south of Bloor and across from the
giant Loblaw's. http://www.hughsroom.com. Licenced. Reservations: (416) 531-6604 or
info@hughsroom.com. $15 advance, $17 at door.
Last edited by jarkko on Fri May 02, 2003 4:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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lizzytysh
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Post by lizzytysh »

Super press release for what sounds like a really fun evening! I hope we'll get follow-up on how it went. Would that be you, Anne?
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tom.d.stiller
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Post by tom.d.stiller »

Sounds ab-so-looot'ly inviting! I wish I could be there. At least someone will have to go there to represent the forum and give us a detailed report that really catches all the fun! Will you, Anne?
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Andrew (Darby)
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Post by Andrew (Darby) »

Nancy,

What a fantastic program and gathering of performers :!:

Makes our September LC birthday celebration events 'down-under' seem a little tame - oh well, we still have a good time, overall! :wink:

(I must say though I do feel our event is a little spoilt at times by the "lightweights", as you put it - if I'm understanding the point of your request correctly.)

Anyway, I wish your event every success and would dearly love to be there!

Cheers
Andrew (Darby)
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Partisan
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Post by Partisan »

Does the price of admission include a free face mask?

p.
Anne
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Post by Anne »

I am afraid I will be out of the country that day. I am sure it will be an amazing event.
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Post by George.Wright »

make sure that it is a blow up one Partisan
georges
I am a right bad ass, dankish prince and I love my Violet to bits.
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tom.d.stiller
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Post by tom.d.stiller »

Has anyone had the chance to look at and listen to Nancy's tribute event? I certainly hope that whoever could be there will tell us everything about it...

Tom
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lizzytysh
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Post by lizzytysh »

I would love to hear from Nancy herself. At least we'll be assured of hearing all the depth and humour of it all! :D C'mon Nancy, speak up! We anxiously await the details.
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Coco
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Post by Coco »

Yes, let us hear about this wonderful event. It would mean so much to us Cohen fans.
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Post by tom.d.stiller »

I just can't believe that none of the forum members had the chance to be there... Please speak up, you unknown one...

Tom
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Coco
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Post by Coco »

Yes! Speak up!
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Post by lizzytysh »

Steeellaaaaaaaa........I mean Naaaaannnnncyyyyyyyyy......!!!!!
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Post by jarkko »

Here follows a report written by Nancy herself!!!! - Jarkko

Because of your interest in All Things Leonard, I thought I'd tell you a bit about our Leonard Cohen Tribute last month at Hugh's Room, here in Toronto.

First - it was a resounding success. We had a packed, happy house and we've decided to do another one next year.

But, you won't believe this, because we didn't. We had hecklers! Expressing rage against poetry at a Leonard Cohen tribute! A friend of mine who was sitting near them told me they were totally hammered, and in fact one woman passed out early in the first set, was roused with difficulty and taken outside by someone, and didn't return until halfway through the second set, at which time she cheerily ordered some cheesecake.

We'd started out with music, then had a bit of poetry from Holmes Hooke, who is a brilliant entertainer as well as a fine poet himself, then more music, then Heriberto Pages got up to read two of his Spanish translations of Cohen poetry, with Holmes reading the English first. And these people started yelling "more music more music" and such things.

This was at a folk club, you understand, and yes it had a bar, and yes, Red Needles (thanks, Cohenfiles!!!) were on the menu, but still, no one was prepared for this kind of behaviour. It didn't last long, but it was kind of startling. (I like to think Leonard would have said "ah, sing, my
angels".)

The audience in general was a wonderful, lively one. There were some folks there who sang along, and, most amazingly, chanted along when Holmes read "Tower of Song". They knew all the words. It was magic. And for me, another magic moment from the audience was during "Hallelujah", joyfully and beautifully sung by my piano player ,Bob Johnston (who played at McGill 2000 with me), when the crowd sang the "hallelujah's" oh so softly and musically, "like a prayer", as Madonna would say.

It was one of those shows where musicians who don't all know each other meet a couple of hours before the doors open to work out arrangements, and it was musically pretty good. I'm sure Mr.Cohen would have been honoured. The Cohen songs we did were "A Thousand Kisses Deep, by me and my daughter Maddy Wilde, "Alexandra Leaving" and "I'm Your Man" by Dave Matheson, "Bernadette" and "The Law" by Mary Kelly", "Hallelujah" and "Don't Go Home With Your Hard On" by Bob Johnston, and "Dance Me to the End of Love" (in French and English) by Marie-Lynn Hammond. We finished the evening with "Anthem", with Maddy and me singing the verses, and everyone doing the choruses.

We also had four songs about or inspired by Leonard, three of which are on your site (Marie-Lynn's "When Leonard Cohen Sings" and my "Leonard Cohen's Never Gonna Bring My Groceries In" and "Get Down Offa That") and one I discovered when the composer, Jack Cooper, emailed me from a town north of the city; he agreed to come sing it -- a bossa nova called "I'll Be Your Leonard Cohen". (I must ask him to send it in to "now you try".)

I sprinkled the evening with what I think of as "Leonard Cohen Lite"
-- the funnier poems and writings -- and since a lot of the performers were people who did a lot of comedy, there were a lot of laughs throughout the show, though of course we were faithful to the music. Danny Marks, who told the story of playing Leonard, lip synching "Dance Me to the End of Love" in a movie starring Omar Sharif (!), began by saying he wasn't quite sure what to do at a Leonard tribute. He'd assumed it was Leonard Nimoy tribute, and he was prepared, man.

Our one mistake was in not rehearsing an encore as a group. There wasn't time, frankly, and people were yelling out "Closing Time" and "Suzanne", which probably one of us could have done, but that wouldn't have been fair. (We are very "no no I couldn't, after you" in Canada, even, sometimes, in the showbiz community.) An encore would have had to involve the entire cast.

So, next year, you can be sure there will be encores galore!

Definitely we'll have the Red Needles again. Mmmmm mmmmm. What a delicious concoction!

Jarkko, I think we paid tribute to Leonard, yes, but especially to his continuing growth as an artist. I'm sure most of us knew the early songs (I lived in Montreal the year the first album came out and I actually ordered it in advance) and loved them, but we all chose to perform the later ones, and several people learned tunes from "Ten New Songs" just for the evening.
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Post by lizzytysh »

Your account was well worth waiting for, Nancy. Thank you.....and, of course, to Jarkko again, for posting it here. The account has the sprinkling of humour and "you are here" elements that I expected. Very glad to have heard about it from the one who knew the inside-out and outside-in details. Some very interesting surprizes. Wish I could've been there this year, and wish I could next year. Thanks for the details of a great evening.....I can hear the magic of the audience with Hallelujah. Wonderful.

~ Elizabeth
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