Bruce Springsteen and Leonard Cohen: Bossing the music biographies (Metro)
Bruce Springsteen, Leonard Cohen and Neil Young are amongst some of the best of the music books available in time for ChristmasThe baby-boomer pound remains as potent a force as ever, judging from this season’s crop of serious music books, led by autobiographies from Neil Young and Pete Townshend, plus a weighty tome of John Lennon’s letters.Veteran British music journalist Sylvie Simmons weighs in with what will surely be seen as a definitive biography, this time for the great Leonard Cohen. Given free access to Cohen, his friends, family and archives, I’m Your Man (Jonathan Cape) is about far more than just the man as a musician.Instead, it offers a detailed – but blessedly psychoanalysis free – account of the Jewish Montrealer’s development as a poet and writer in the long years before he turned singer.It also gives due care to all aspects of Cohen’s long life, from his less successful records to his years spent as a Buddhist monk. Poor picture presentation is the only weak point.