Field Commander: The tour Leonard Cohen called his greatest
“Field Commander Cohen, he was our most important spy,” Leonard Cohen said on his 1973 album New Skin For The Old Ceremony. It’s a track about Cohen breaking into the big time and weaseling his way into the glitzy world of the music industry as it’s favourite new thing. Around that time and as he embarked on his 1976 Field Commander Cohen tour, that’s exactly what he was doing.
After his breakout in 1966, a moment which arrived as Judy Collins covered his track ‘Suzanne’ and introduced him to the world, Cohen quickly became one of the biggest names in the new folk scene. A crowd that included the likes of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell, Cohen’s own poetic and grand lyricism perfectly aligned with his peers. He was romantic, artistic and endlessly charming, three qualities that will really get a person places.
While American music critics didn’t seem to think much of him, Cohen was an immediate hit in the UK as his debut album spent over a year in the charts. His first tour in 1970 took him around the US, Canada, and Europe, as every city revealed a cult fan base, a clear hunger for his work, and an obsession with him as an artist. According to Bob Johnson, Cohen was becoming a hot ticket. He said: “I think Leonard is probably the best performer in the world. I never saw anybody that did what he did.”
Those early shows made Cohen realise something new about his career; he wanted a crowd. As a writer who had previously been more isolated in his work, spending time on the island of Hydra or travelling around with little more than a book and a guitar, he’d never considered that he might need an audience.
“I need them,” he told MOJO, “I think my voice sounds better when I am somewhat obscured with the sounds of people who can actually sing. I have never had much competence. Personally when I listen to my songs, I’m always more comfortable when my voice is surrounded by harmonies, which to me would naturally suggest the female voice. I need to hear harmonies so that I can just find the pitch.”
But beyond his self-critique about his pitchiness, Cohen’s live shows invigorated him and his music with new energy. His on-stage persona was somewhere between a shaman and a ladies man, able to hypnotise his crowd with his lyrics and then have them laughing.
During his 1979 tour, that persona came to full fruition. According to Cohen himself, it was his “best ever tour”.
The run of dates took Cohen around Europe, Australia, and Israel again, but with changes in his band. He brought Jennifer Warnes and Sharon Robinson on board for backing vocals, allowing him to create the rich harmonies heard on his records live. Cohen also extended his backing band, nicknaming them ‘The Army’. With more money, more success and more fans, the 1979 tour, in general, was bigger and more polished in a distinctly Cohen way.
Warnes’ role in the tour was vital. Cohen would keep bringing her band, adding her distinctive vocals to his future records as a mainstay to his sound. With the pair together on stage, recordings of that 1979 tour, captured on the Field Commander Cohen: Tour of 1979 album, sound like hearing Cohen figure out his new sound in real-time.
Listening to that live album makes it easy to see why Cohen holds the tour in such high praise. His band sounds rich and full, with strings and harmonies. Cohen himself sounds brilliant, with a deep and velvety voice defying the ongoing joke that he was, in fact, a bad singer. When his lyrics demand attention, the band quiets to give them the spotlight. In other moments, they swell to dramatic effect, which no doubt excited his crowd. Regarding 1977 Death Of A Ladies Man songs, they boom to fresh new life, shaking off the folk calm for rockier energy.
During that 1979 tour, Cohen revealed himself as a confident artist, more than deserving of his cult following and demanding bigger crowds as he meandered across continents.
