Various Artists
Verve/Universal
Rated: 4 out of 5
This isn’t the first tribute album to Leonard Cohen. It isn’t even the first one to include Nick Cave and Bono. But Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man is the one that’s garnered the most attention - chiefly because it’s also the soundtrack to an acclaimed concert documentary.
It’s also the most consistent and reverent Cohen tribute - chiefly because most of these 16 tracks feature the same band and Cohen’s own longtime backup vocalists.
Which is not to suggest the VIP guests - including Cave, The Handsome Family, Beth Orton, Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker, Teddy Thompson and assorted McGarrigles and Wainwrights - don’t make the songs their own. Not at all.
Martha Wainwright builds Tower of Song atop a vein of Delta blues and turns Traitor into an accordion waltz; brother Rufus gets his tango on for Everybody Knows; Cave dresses up I’m Your Man as a strip-bar bump-and-grind.
Speaking of strip bars, U2 and Cohen even do a reiteration of Tower of Song, taped in a burlesque bar.
That should make this the most popular Cohen film - for any number of reasons.
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