leonard cohen's lonesome heroes  (DVD, £14.50)

Here, the scope and detail of Cohen’s artistic inspirations is put under the microscope with quite fascinating results. Cohen’s first love was poetry, and in the works of the Spanish poet Garcia Lorca and his fellow Canadian, Irving Layton, he found the words that moved him to create his own verse. The beat writers too struck a chord with Leonard and their work has lived with him throughout his career. It may not come as a surprise to find Bob Dylan and Judy Collins as part of this index, but perhaps a less acknowledged genre of interest to Cohen is country music - however he was deeply affected by performers such as Hank Williams, Hank Snow and the country recordings of Ray Charles. And the fact Cohen’s records have always achieved greater success in Europe than in North America may partly be due to his love of the Belgian chansonnier Jacques Brel. With the aid of rare and classic performance footage of both Cohen and those he has been influenced by most, plus exclusive interviews with Judy Collins; his biographer Ira Nadel; poet and Cohen academic Stephen Scobie; the man who guided Leonard through the rituals at the Mount Baldy Buddhist Monastery, Kigen; former Rolling Stone magazine editor Anthony De Curtis and many others, this fascinating and unique film is unlike any document on this most extraordinary of composers yet to appear. The film also contains seldom seen photographs, archive footage of Cohen in interview and a host of other features. EXTRAS include: Special Feature ‘Cohen by Collins’ – Judy Collins speaks about her love for the music of Leonard Cohen; plus Contributor Biographies and Beyond DVD section.