Letter to Leo

 A letter to Leo

Preview

 

    

Anyone who has looked at a blank page or screen after losing the product of inspired work knows the misery of trying again to reconstruct the blood, sweat and tears once held in the vanished pages. It is said T.H. Lawrence left a 250,000-word manuscript in a train station and never got over it. To truly recover, an artist must perform one of the most difficult tasks of creation. Such is the case of “Letter to Leo” being released by singer Perla Batalla who has chosen an eclectic and thoroughly beautiful handful of Leonard Cohen compositions as her heart-felt thanking of a dear friend and artistic inspiration. This is no rehash of the great songs of Cohen, who gets wiser and better the older any listener gets. La Batalla could have re-recorded the song list from “Songs of Leonard Cohen” and made it sound great, but she chose to dig way deeper. Perla Batalla stood on stage next to Cohen, rode airplanes and taxi cabs with him. She knew his heart and she never stopped loving his music and the man. After his frustrating, death Perla’s grief felt unfinished even after performing numerous tributes and making an  excellent album of her favorite Leonard Cohen songs, Her version of “Bird on the Wire” is so good even Cohen would admit she improved the classic song. Still, she had more to say and began work on a second record that was being  completed in Spain when the scourge of Covid enveloped the planet. There was no worse time for musicians than those dead years of 2020 to 2022 because the love of  music is wonderful, but audiences give the artists strength to get better.

    When singers and music lovers came out from under Perla returned to Europe to get back to producing the album and found the entire thing gone into the ether. No hard drives, no album, waves of inspiration and love put into lyrics vanished. The blood runs cold just to think about the moment of sick epiphany. If this were simply a project to make money any artist would have cried a lot and  limped home, but Perla still had something to say to Leonard Cohen and she refused to quit. Money was found because the lady had made friends and stayed loyal to family for decades and the project began again. The work is dedicated to the great record producer Hal Wilner, which is appropriate since the production here is simply transcendent. Of course, the musicians are superb and are drawn from all genres and Perla Batalla’s voice has never been better. Yet,  they are put on a magical platform. Technically the sound is clean, and the lead vocals are never crowded or cluttered. What elevates this work is the amazing variety of sound which goes from down to earth folksy to orchestral majesty.

The opening  “Awakened” is sweetened by strings and  is lush and lovely. “A Thousand Kisses Deep” is flamenco flavored that works within the self-deprecating lyrics “you win a while and then it’s done your little winning streak / and summoned now to deal with your invincible defeat” “Democracy” is poignant for today’s puzzling threats to the same. The mixture of gospel and a rap hybrid works perfectly. The backup of Patrick Page will give you goosebumps on goosebumps. “Sisters of Mercy” just shimmers with the clean piano of Luis Cartes Ivern and the mother-daughter combination vocal keeping the classic quality of this great song. “Everybody Knows” is just a song they should play in classrooms instead of removing books. Here it is elegiac and true to Cohen’s original intention. “Aint No Cure for Love” is the surprise of the album, percolating and upbeat it could be Lesley Gore singing but it is a sunny Perla Batalla. This song is typical of the true studio crafting of this once in a lifetime collection with texture and depth. “The Partisan” is brilliantly set up with an oud solo by Dimitris Mahlis  preparing the listener for dark and foreboding tale of resistance to evil. The oud interweaves with Batalla’s urgent vocal that turns to the original French in the last stanzas. This song from Cohen’s second album reverberates all the way forward from 1969.

“You Want It Darker” is from the later part of the Cohen legacy that becomes more interesting the older I get. The sound here is darker too with slide guitars and a thick bass. If this truly was Maestro Cohen’s last song, he had lost nothing to old age. “The L in Your Name” is just a pure love song from Perla to Leo. I cannot imagine following this song and when the concerts begin, I would assume it would close shows. There will be tears from Sheila. “Take This Waltz” is yet another turn toward a different sound within the album. Mixing Steve Bernstein’s trumpet with Spanish guitar and flamenco clapping La Batalla’s formidable pipes and angelic backups make this a poem set to music. Last “A Singer Must Die” is an art song in the milieu of Kurt Weill. It seems to me it is about taking that chance and telling the truth of a story which Leonard Cohen did in hundreds of wonderful songs. Perla Batalla reminds us all that this truth has no end.