James Taylor, Peter Gabriel, and Iggy Pop are but a few of the participants in the new collection, Here It Is: A Tribute To Leonard Cohen. Among the other high profile artists who lent their talents to the set are Norah Jones, Mavis Staples, and Sarah McLachlan, among others.
James Taylor was quoted by Rolling Stone as crediting the project's producer Larry Klein for selecting “Coming Back To You” for him to cover: “For the project, I was drawn to a relatively obscure piece that was new to me, 'Coming Back To You.' Larry opted to cut the song in Cohen’s original key, which was certainly at the bottom of my own range. But somehow moving me out of my comfort zone helped me find my own approach to the song. Like so much of Leonard Cohen’s writing, this lyric resonates deeply with his forlorn and hopeless take on the bleak landscape of love and attachment.”
Back in 2008, the late, great Lou Reed inducted Leonard Cohen into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In his speech, Reed explained how important Leonard Cohen was as an artist: “'I showed my heart to the doctor. He said I just have to quit. Then he wrote himself a prescription and your name was mentioned in it.' He could've stopped there. He just gets better. We're so lucky to be alive at the same time as Leonard Cohen.”
The tracklisting to Here It Is: A Tribute to Leonard Cohen is:
“Steer Your Way” – Norah Jones
“Here It Is” – Peter Gabriel
“Suzanne” – Gregory Porter
“Hallelujah” – Sarah McLachlan
“Avalanche” – Immanuel Wilkins
“Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye” – Luciana Souza
“Coming Back To You” – James Taylor
“You Want It Darker” – Iggy Pop
“If It Be Your Will” – Mavis Staples
“Seems So Long Ago, Nancy” – David Gray
“Famous Blue Raincoat” – Nathaniel Rateliff
“Bird On The Wire” – Bill Frisell