Leonard Cohen Didn't Even Bring a Raincoat, Famous or Otherwise

Just an amiable guy, chatting about everyday stuff. As one does.

Leonard Cohen, photographed on Polaroid Slide film, all photos Chris X Carroll.

Around the halls of SPIN, there were a number of colorful characters. One day Scott Cohen was awaiting a call from Bob Dylan and had to go to the bathroom. This was before answering machines or voicemail. Scott was so terrified of missing the call from Dylan that he was preparing to pee his pants. I offered to sit by the phone so he could relieve himself, which he did, taking a couple minutes off his vigil while I offered to sit and wait for the phone to ring. Which of course it didn’t, not on my watch anyway. I was disappointed of course. Thinking back on it, few things were more terrifying than the thought of trying to entertain Bob Dylan for long enough to get the writer on the line. But the phone never rang, Scott relieved himself, reclaimed his desk and sent me off duty. As consolation, Scott told me he was teeing up an article on Leonard Cohen (no relation) and I should assign myself to shoot it. I didn’t know Leonard Cohen, but when Scott told me to arrange to photograph someone I took heed.

Which is how I ended up photographing Leonard Cohen without really knowing who he was. Of all the famous subjects I’ve worked with, Cohen’s name generally results in, “You worked with Leonard Cohen?! OMG, how come I never heard about it?”

 

On one hand, I tried to approach every portrait with a fresh eye, without being prejudiced by previously formed opinions. Musicians are just people, and I generally found treating them as such yielded better results than rolling up like the biggest fanboi in the world. Mr. Cohen showed up to my studio at 430 West 14th—a space I maintained for about eighteen months before moving to the loft on Church Street where I made most of the pictures discussed here—presenting as a dignified older gentleman. 

Years later I discovered Cohen’s work and  regretted being able to ask him about it. Funny thing, getting to work with artists, even or especially those you admire, can be a double-edged sword. A guy like Leonard Cohen was just kind of fascinating to talk to, whether or not I was familiar with his work. In fact, in a lot of ways, it’s better when you don’t know much. Then you can ask. 

Leonard Cohen without much environment showing at all.

Richard Avedon made amazing portraits, with his subjects invariably clearly but undramatically lit, tack-sharp on a plain white seamless background. He wasn’t concerned with what some artist’s latest song or book was about. By simplifying the elements, he gave his subjects a power that would not have manifested if they were sitting in a messy room. Portraiture is a funny business. That messy room might be just evocative enough to reveal your subject. But simplifying and distilling portraits down to their very essence forgoes the biographical elements for the power of personality. I see that tension as I look back on these pictures I made so long ago. I tended to go more the Avedon route, no white backdrop but as with these portraits of Cohen you can’t really get any sense of environment or place. It was my studio, so understandable in this instance. However, I do find myself wishing I’d backed up and/or shown more environment. 

It is a truism that people love to talk about themselves. But I found that often, especially with musicians, they’d been asked the same questions by a million journalists and were really sick of talking about their own creative output. The great artist is busy quizzing you about what they don’t know, desperate to learn about others’ experiences and perspectives. About the last thing they want to discuss is what “Famous Blue Raincoat” is really about; they’re busy casting about for their next piece and are far more interested in finding out where you got that fabulous raincoat than telling you about that iconic one that was torn at the shoulder. Why bother? The song already does it.

I do love the grain on this film, though it scratched even from being looked at.

And then there’s the fact that artists tell you what they tell you in their songs, poems, and paintings. I dabble in poetry, mainly haiku, which jeez, let’s face it, how many secrets can seventeen syllables hold? I have been surprised and kind of bemused to have people actually ask me what my haikus mean. Many songwriters talk about releasing their songs to the world, and once they’re out there they are on their own. What do they mean? Who knows, they mean what they mean to you. No longer are they tethered to one person’s thought process; now they are grist for everyone’s personal imagination mill. “You take what you need and leave the rest…”  say some Twelve Steppers, but I think all poets and songwriters can relate.

“I just had a thought…”

In this era of Me Too and the reconsideration of historical figures I have been disappointed to find my own twenty-something daughters suggest that poorly behaving artists should not be given the grace of having lived in different times or being allowed to separate their work output from their personal foibles and behaviors. Claire Dederer, in her recent book Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma, discusses these very issues, compellingly and convincingly. Don’t miss it, she has clearly spent more time musing on these conflicts than I have.

 I photographed a couple hundred celebrities who were by and large delightful and pleasant people to work and hang out with. The few who weren’t are not going to be chronicled here. I might get up the courage to tell you about my encounter with the psychopath Bill Cosby, but the rest, no way, I’m taking those stories to my grave. People do want “dirt” and salacious stories but I’m not going to wreck my karma for the sake of sensationalism. This period of my life and the pictures I’m using as wedges into it have a halcyon glow and that’s the way I like it. 

Leonard Cohen was a terrific guy who turned out to be an artist whose work I would come to relish. The fact that the Cohen I encountered was that guy, rather than the artist explaining his work to the acolyte, makes me love these pictures all the more. The fact that I later learned to love Leonard Cohen is gravy. In the meantime, I think I made some pretty cool pictures of a pretty cool guy. And that’s good enough for me.