Born 1934 into a traditional Jewish family from Montreal Canada, Leonard Cohen can now be described as one of the most accomplished and celebrated singer-song writers and poets of our time. He published his first book of poetry in 1956 and his first novel in 1963. It was during his time spent on the Greek Island of Hydra that his hedonistic genius as a songwriter began to emerge. In true bohemian style, he returned from Greece, by all accounts, penniless and joined, almost by accident, the folk revival that existed in Greenwich Village, New York during the mid-60s. During these years he penned the poetic and deeply moving songs that were to change not only his life, but the lives of an entire generation of fans – those of an acoustic music listening counterculture that prevailed at that time across most of the western world. The rest, as they say, is history.