On 13th October 1979, Leonard Cohen began his most extensive tour to date in support of his sixth studio album, Recent Songs , with a concert in Gothenburg, Sweden. Entitled ‚The Smokey Life Tour‘, this 48-concert European leg of what would eventually become a world tour (ultimately encompassing too Australia, the USA, and in November 1980, Israel) progressed through Sweden, Norway, Denmark, France, Holland, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, England and Ireland. Cohen surrounded himself with a coterie of superb musicians. As a nucleus, he co-opted the Austin, Texas-based jazz band, Passenger (Steve Meador on drums, Roscoe Beck on bass, Mitch Watkins on guitar, Bill Ginn on keyboards and Paul Ostermayer on sax and flute). Further extending the core group’s capabilities were violinist Raffi Hakopian and John Bilezikjian on the oud – an 11-string pear-shaped instrument, visually similar to a mandolin – all of whom had also contributed to ‚Recent Songs‘. Completing the ensemble, Leonard’s brace of backing singers on the jaunt were long-time friend and colleague Jennifer Warnes (who later released her own Cohen tribute album, ‚Famous Blue Raincoat‘ in 1987) and another Cohen collaborator and future song-writing partner, Sharon Robinson. This concert, from Bonn’s prestigious 2,000 capacity Beethovenhalle, was recorded towards the end of the European extravaganza on 3rd December, and, as is evident, the cast were performing superbly by this juncture. ‚Recent Songs‘ was, and remained, a personal favourite of Leonard s: „I think I like ‚Recent Songs‘ the best. The producer was Henry Levy – I was studying with Roshi at the time in Los Angeles and it was appropriate that I worked with a Los Angeles producer. He had that great quality that Bob Johnston (Bob Dylan’s producer) had: a lot of faith in the singer and he just let it happen. He introduced me to the group Passenger. I’d always wanted to combine those Middle Eastern or Eastern European sounds with the rhythmic possibilities of a jazz or rock’n’roll rhythm section,“ he later stated.

Disk: 1