WEEKEND EDITION - MP3 DOWNLOAD: ANJANI THOMAS & LEONARD COHEN IN WARSAW

Anjani Thomas met Leonard Cohen when she was hired to sing backup vocals on "Hallelujah" from his 1985 album Various Positions. She toured with him that year as keyboardist and backup vocalist and has worked with Cohen ever since. Anjani contributed to Leonard Cohen's albums I'm Your Man, The Future, Dear Heather and Old Ideas.

In pursuit of a solo career, Anjani released a beautiful album called Blue Alert in 2006. For the project she had gone through Cohen's old notebooks, found lyrics and poems and in conjunction with him, set them to music. Cohen said, "I think both of us were working at the top of our form. Collaboration is too formal a term to describe the activity, which was an expression of some kind of deep mutuality – some kind of marriage of purpose." In the summer of 2007 Marti and I saw Anjani touring behind the album at the small New Morning club here in Paris. Leonard Cohen joined her on the encore. What a thrill. Earlier that year they did a live radio concert in Warsaw. For a limited time you can download that radio set here.



My favorite song from Blue Alert.

In 2014 Anjani released a follow-up album, including three more Leonard Cohen adaptations.