The Smokey Life Photo Gallery by Hazel Field
Jarkko Arjatsalo
At the Montreal Event in May 2000 many of us met Hazel Field,
the well-known professional photographer and long-time friend of Leonard's.
Now Hazel has kindly given us a collection of her best shots from the
tour of 1979. She has captured some extraordinary moments of the
troops behind the scenes and on stage.
"The Smokey Life Photo Gallery" is a part of the Special Report on the
new live album "Field Commander Cohen". These pages were compiled
by Marie Mazur and Jarkko Arjatsalo for participating sites in the Leonard
Cohen Webring. The attractive layout of the new Gallery was designed
by our artistic wizard Marie.
But there is more in the FCC report! Jim Donoghue was in London in
1979 and now he lets us share his recollections of those precious moments.
Go to the FCC Special report using links and banners on the front pages of
the participating sites:
http://www.leonardcohenfiles.com (The Leonard Cohen Files)
http://members.aol.com/megan2c2b/ (Speaking Cohen)
http://www.patrice.org/ (The French Leonard Cohen Site)
The new album will be released on Feb 19 in Europe and on Feb 20 in
North America. - I have now enjoyed the album for a couple of days,
and am able to assure you that this IS definitely a superb compilation of
carefully and skillfully chosen songs. I was very pleased to note that many
of my
favorite songs are included, songs that so far have attracted too small
attention -
like The Smokey Life, Why Don't You Try, Memories and the title song.
The technical quality is perfect, I'd even say astounding, in particular
remembering that the tapes date from so long back in time.
I'm of course in a way disqualified to say what a typical album buyer
thinks - I have so many live tapes in my archive and I've been listening to
the songs
from these tours so often. Still many of these song, duets, intros, solos,
surprised me. I'd say that this album again demonstrates what a splendid
live performer Leonard is (and how outstanding the artists are that he has
been touring with). In fact it makes me sad that I never had opportunity to
hear him during those tours, live on stage (I saw him live in Helsinki in
1988 and 1993).
The atmosphere in the concerts must have been unique. Some (in fact plenty)
of it is transferred onto the album, so this kind of album is the second
best
thing for Cohen's fans (the best of course being a live concert in 200X).
This album
is an excellent appetizer, not only for more live material, but for the new
studio album!
Jarkko