Jennifer Warnes
Famous Blue Raincoat: The Songs of Leonard Cohen

Interpreting and successfully imprinting a personal and creative touch on the music and poetics of Leonard Cohen is a very arduous task: many, I would say even too many, have tried, often purely for lucrative purposes or in an attempt to give themselves a certain "artistic" tone, reaching the bottom with insipid X-Factor appearances covering "Hallelujah" as if it were any "I Feel Love." Who better than someone who has worked closely with the great poet and songwriter can succeed in this difficult endeavor, who better than Jennifer Warnes, a discreet, elegant and elusive personality, almost in the image and likeness of Cohen himself?

A crystalline and precocious talent Jennifer, with blonde hair and an angelic voice, has had a long recording career, starting as a teenager in the '60s but never achieving the real public success she deserved; her biggest hits are the ballad "Up Where We Belong" from 1982, a duet with Joe Cocker, and "Time Of My Life," the highlight of the soundtrack for the famous "Dirty Dancing," but the collaboration that has most profoundly characterized her path is precisely the one with Leonard Cohen: Jennifer Warnes has been a constant and persistent presence in the songwriter's albums from the much-misunderstood "Recent Songs" to "The Future," always providing a tangible and invaluable contribution, with the splendid duet of "The Smokey Life" as the pinnacle of personal achievement. Given the mutual respect and friendship between the two artists, the project "Famous Blue Raincoat," dated 1987, was born with Cohen's own blessing, so much so that the singles chosen to promote the album, "First We Take Manhattan" and "Ain't No Cure For Love" anticipated by a few months the release of "I'm Your Man." Without any shadow of a doubt, the best tribute to Leonard Cohen ever recorded, "Famous Blue Raincoat" is a reinterpretation of his repertoire in a more pop style in the best sense of the term: more immediate and accessible, but in an absolutely creative and personal way, many songs completely change their skin while remaining faithful to the soul of the respective originals, thanks to a wide range of arrangements drawing heavily from the electronic vogue of the time, rock, and traditional strings, brass, piano, and choirs.

More than the production, the arrangements, and the stylistic range, the true protagonist of "Famous Blue Raincoat" is indeed Jennifer Warnes, her wonderful voice: powerful, almost lyrical with strong soul accents, it is never over the top, never indulges in sterile and annoying demonstrations of technique, aimless vocalizations, and other trivialities of this kind, but is always at the service of the melody and the words; elegant, evocative, of a pure, clear, and crystalline purity, she makes all nine songs of the album her own; the album's highlight, "First We Take Manhattan" features Steve Ray Vaughan, who with his guitar replaces the electronics of Cohen's version giving the song a rock/blues imprint, accentuated by Warnes' assertive interpretation, tinged with just the right touch of "coldness" and nonchalance that fits the context well, while "Ain't No Cure For Love" turns out to be the only performance decidedly inferior to the original, losing much warmth and brilliance compared to it, remaining a bit too mannered, confined within the scope of a well-interpreted cover, something that does not happen for the rest of the album: "Bird On A Wire" is based on a soft fabric of electronics and percussion, transforming the original's dolorous and sparse simplicity into serene, fluid, and consolatory poetry, paced by a great Vinnie Colaiuta, while "Famous Blue Raincoat" travels on more "orthodox" tracks, limiting itself to small sax interventions and very discreet orchestrations just to accentuate the "noir" atmosphere of the song, also highlighted by Jennifer Warnes' dolorous and intense, yet very measured interpretation, for "A Singer Must Die" a disorienting wall of a cappella choruses is invented that grows in intensity following the main voice, which unfolds in a chant of thin and restless despair, creating the most "sui generis" episode of the album, which melts into the engaging and very elegant "Came So Far For Beauty," where the masterful use of electric piano and accordion creates a magical and surreal atmosphere.

There is really little to say about "Coming Back To You" revisited in rock ballad style: the song retains all its original beauty, Jennifer manages to give it additional energy and passion, in a moving performance, exemplary for all those who wish to interpret someone else's song; it is perhaps the highest point of the album along with a "Joan Of Arc" that is epic and elegiac, almost diaphanous in its perfect balance between electronics and piano, with Leonard Cohen's intervention appearing in person giving voice to the fire that consumes the ancient heroine, in a moving otherworldly dialogue that explodes in the intense "la-la" already present in the original song, here dressed with greater emphasis and solemnity. Completing the picture is the ecstatic piano-ballad "Song Of Bernadette," written jointly by Cohen-Warnes ad hoc for the album, very simple and essential in structure, which maximizes the intensity of the singing.

During the "Famous Blue Raincoat" sessions, "If It Be Your Will," "Night Comes On," and "Ballad Of The Runaway Horse" were also recorded, all characterized by a very intimate, simple, and sober style, almost more Cohen-like than their original counterparts, published in 2007 in the album's twentieth anniversary reissue, which achieved considerable sales success, to the point of increasing the notoriety of its inspiration and unanimous positive reviews, well-deserved because "Famous Blue Raincoat" is an album of rare and disarming beauty; of a sublime performer like Jennifer Warnes, who, having returned to relative "anonymity" after this successful exploit, in a few years will also demonstrate her talent as an all-around author and musician with her enchanting album "The Hunter," as much a manifesto as "Famous Blue Raincoat," of eclecticism, creativity, and innate class.