Perla Batalla, a Vocalist for Leonard Cohen, on Her New Tribute Album

It’s not nearly often enough that we get to say, “And in the world of Leonard Cohen news…” But many devotees of the late, great singer-songwriter-poet have the “I’m Your Man” man on their minds this weekend, for two reasons: It’s the occasion of his 90th birthday. And Perla Batalla, a familiar face and voice to fans with having sung with Cohen live and on record though one of his most celebrated periods, in the 1980s and ’90s, is releasing “A Letter to Leonard Cohen: Tribute to a Friend,” in digital formats. (Vinyl and CD editions will follow on Nov. 22.)

There could be no sweeter-sounding bird on the wire that leads back to Cohen’s 50-year legacy in music than Batalla, who along with Julie Christensen formed the duo that accompanied Cohen during his incredibly fruitful “I’m Your Man” and “The Future” periods. Of course, “backing vocalist” hardly begins to get at how important female vocals were to his work for the better part of his career. Cohen began his output in the mid-’60s adhering more to the expected musical formulas of the singer-songwriter or folk-rock milieus, but from the ’70s forward, he was enlisting the help of “angels” as a sort of heavenly Greek chorus thoughout his songs. Jennifer Warnes was one of these, and led the way in releasing her own highly touted tribute album in the ’80s. Batalla followed in those footsteps by releasing her first album of homage to her mentor, “Bird on the Wire,” in 2005, succeeded by this followup eight years after its subject’s death.

Batalla spoke with Variety before taking to the stage of 54 Below in New York City for a tribute concert this weekend, a performance shared with Patrick Page, the star of Broadway’s “Hadestown,” whom fans of that show have remarked could nearly be Cohen’s vocal double. Page appears on Batalla’s new album, too, more or less taking the role of Cohen in a radical and exciting, beat-propelled new arrangement of the 1991 song “Democracy,” produced by Mike Elizondo. (Batalla produced the rest of the album herself.)

You’re doing a concert of Leonard’s songs with Patrick Page, and he performs on the first single you put out from this new album, “Democracy.” When a lot of us saw him on Broadway in “Hadestown” or heard the cast album, the first thing we all thought was: He is a ringer for Cohen.

I know. It was crazy how we came to know each other. During COVID, I wrote him a note because I listened to the cast recording of “Hadestown,” not having seen the show, and I said, “You don’t know who I am, but I just have to tell you, I was weeping listening to this because you reminded me of Leonard, and I was so touched.” He wrote me back and said, “I’m a fan and I’ve loved Leonard for years, and how wonderful that you contacted me.” From there I went to see “Hadestown,” we became friends and he agreed to sing on this record.

And then he asked me, “Why don’t we do something together? I would just love to do a show where we sing Cohen together,” and I jumped at the chance. He immediately had ideas of songs he wanted to do. And of course, there are songs of Leonard’s that I don’t have in my repertoire that are Leonard’s because they’re so Leonard-dominant and they have very personal, male kinds of views about things. And so he’s doing those, and I’m doing songs that I love and sing. Patrick is just a great guy — very similar to Leonard in terms of being generous and fun and very positive.

Originally I didn’t have it as part of the record. During the sessions it was gnawing at me that I should do “Democracy.” But I didn’t have an arrangement for it. I didn’t want to do it as sort of the military march that Leonard had in his version of it. And I came home from Barcelona (where the rest of the album was recorded), and I asked Mike Elizondo if he would do a track for me, and luckily he had a few days to do it. He delivered it immediately and it was so beautiful. From there everything fell into place, because I said, I can’t just sing this rap about democracy by myself. I needed another element, and I thought immediately about Patrick and said, “Would you be willing to do this?” He jumped at the chance, and I went to New York and we recorded it, and he did a beautiful job. 

Leonard became very well-known for his female vocals over time, and that seemed to be one way of really getting at stuff that he didn’t have the range to do. His songs are often very melodically expressive, and sometimes he was able to do that with his voice, but he was not going to have these big hooks a lot of the time with just his singing, so that was kind of up to you and your compatriots to bring that to life. Can you speak to the role of background singers and why that was important to him. 

Well, first of all, I would never call it background singing, because it’s very, very important foreground singing. Backing vocals, perhaps. But it’s such an art, and one that I take very, very seriously and that I love.  And with my background in singing jazz for years and doing very complex arrangements, when I used to sing at the Vine Street Bar and Grill with Swing Street four nights a week, with Julie Christensen and Miriam Cutler, we did these really intricate arrangements. That to me was a real art.

And then getting this gig with Leonard and getting to sing with Julie, we just spread our wings and he gave us permission… There were other singers that he’s had over the years — I mean, Jennifer Warnes was pretty amazing, and she sort of passed that baton onto us. But Leonard could wanthis “angels,” as he called the backing vocalists, to kind of to be angelic. But Julie and I added way more than that. We were very serious about it, and we thought every song required a little bit of a different treatment. And we had so much fun with this material. We definitely heard the melodies, and Leonard gave us a lot of space to create the music that we created on stage with him.

How long did you sing with him? How many years was it?

Well, it’s hard to say. (To start with) I did the “I’m Your Man” tour, and then in ‘93 the “Future” Tour. And then, I mean, I was helping him with vocals on his last record, while he was writing “You Want It Darker.” I was in the room and he was coming up with stuff, and by that time he was already pretty sick, but he wanted to get this record done.

And you cover the song “You Want It Darker” on the new album.

When he was doing it, I just thought, well, this is Leonard’s  message of goodbye, and it’s absolutely personal. I never ever thought that I would be singing that song, but for some reason I just felt the need to, and it called out to me. I did my own different version of it, and I got it on my own level. WIth any song that I sing, I have to sort of put it inside my body and just see how it applies to me, how it feels, and then only then can I decide to have it come out of me.

People would study that song and that album and wonder whether it was his last will and testament. People think that about David Bowie’s last album, too, but then there are people in his circle who would tell you, no, he actually thought he’d get to make more music. With Leonard, anyhow, it seems like he knew.

He knew. He knew this would be the last one.

“You Want It Darker” can read like a spiritual at times — “I’m ready, Lord” — but there are some kind of almost funny lines too. It’s certainly not a straight spiritual. How did you interpret that song for yourself? 

Well, I think it’s not for me to tell you how I interpret it. It’s for the listener to decide. You know, for a singer, Leonard is like Shakespeare to an actor. You say the words, you sing the words, and of course, the way I do things, the song has to become part of me. When I’m singing that song, there’s definitely a level of: Some of life lets you down, and you see the irony, you see the humor in it, and you just keep going. Really, you keep going whether it’s going till the end of your life or if you’re going into the spiritual realm, if you’re a kind of person that believes in that sort of thing. So, I saw that as both — having a foot here on earth and having one in the next realm.

There’s an earnest spiritual element and then there’s this wicked, bitter humor. And they can exist in the same song — “Hallelujah” being a great example of that.

Well, the fact that anyone would choose “that, like,”Hallelujah” for, like, a song at their wedding, I just find it hilarious. … I said to Leonard, “Are you excited that every artist is doing ‘Hallelujah’? It’s all over the place.” And he confessed that it was maybe not his favorite of the songs that he wrote, (saying) “I’ve written far better songs than that.” Which is true, but it somehow captured the imagination of so many in its simplicity, and its beauty.

Some people could not see past the gravity in his voice, but if you ever met him or got to see him speak for very long, you got a sense of some mirth there. And if he said or sang something amusing, it could be even funnier just because of how inherently straight-faced he sounded when he said it.

Honestly, if you were hanging out with Leonard, there was not a serious bone in his body. He was just trying to make you laugh every moment. He really was so joyous, so full of life, and always trying to make me laugh, playing tricks on me. If if I did a gig at Largo, I didn’t want him to be bothered by people, so I would seat Leonard in the back in the dark. He would change his table to be right in front of me — and then he would love it if he distracted me and made me forget my words. He just thought that was hilariously funny. So he was a troublemaker, a practical joker, and he always wanted to make me laugh. That’s what a lot of people don’t know about him. In the last few years of touring, he really didn’t say much on stage. But early on he was just like a comedian. His patter between songs was brilliant and very, very funny. 

Was it an inevitable thing that you would start covering Leonard’s songs, after singing with him? 

Ater the first tour with Leonard, he asked me to sing “Bird on the Wire” at a party that he was giving, and I thought to myself, no, because after going on the road with him, I honestly didn’t think anybody could sing Leonard Cohen except for Leonard. I had such respect and held him in the very highest regard as a performer and as a singer. I said, “If you want to sing it, I’ll definitely sing backing vocals for you, but I just don’t think so.” He said, “Don’t worry. But why don’t you just try to live with the song, and then if you decide you don’t want to do it, then I will accept that and we’ll go on.” I said, OK. So I worked and worked on that song with a friend of mine playing guitar, and at the end of the day, having that song in my body felt like absolute nirvana. I said to my friend, “You know what? I think I own this song now.” And he said to me, “Don’t kid yourself. This song owns you.”

And “Bird on the Wire” was what I named my first tribute album to Leonard. From then on, I was hooked, and I’ve been traveling the world singing his songbook for, wow, 15 years, maybe more. It’s my absolute privilege to sing this stuff. It means so much to me, not just on an artistic level, but on a personal level. It’s a double whammy. 

Leonard’s voice could be an obstacle for some people, while for others of us, we were in love with us. But I have a funny issue. I find myself still having a hard time listening to the early stuff sometimes, because I think of his later voice and I think, well, that’s his real voice.

That’s interesting. The funny thing is, though, I think that North Americans tend to be really limited about singers. I only say that because I was raised in a family that is Latino. My dad was Mexican; my mother was Argentine, but she’s a Hungarian Jew. So the singers I was listening to were phenomenal Mexican singers, South American singers and European singers, and those were my standards — the great mariachi vocalists and some of these wonderful European singers and poets. So when I met Leonard, I thought, “Have I just died and gone to heaven?” Because these lyrics are poetry, which to me held very high value. I was not the greatest fan of American pop music. Some things I totally loved, but overall I felt like (pop songs) were easy lyrics; everything was super simplified at times. And so I found myself veering towards world music, different languages, that kind of thing, in my youth. And so finding Leonard…

When I was asked to audition, I honestly didn’t know much about Leonard Cohen. And  when I arrived at the audition and I heard this music, it blew my mind. I immediately felt like I belonged there because I had so much respect for songs that are not just songs but literature at the same time. It just brought it to a level that I absolutely adored and I got it immediately. You think about how things align and come together, and if you’re lucky enough to have one of those things in your life, you’re a very lucky person. And then becoming great friends, having him in my life till the very end, it’s a beautiful thing.

You and Julie Christensen had been doing something together before you worked together with Leonard. What was special about that?

Julie is such a wonderful singer and we met doing these gigs at jazz clubs in L.A. Our birthdays are three days apart, so it’s like we read each other’s minds, musically. We never did what most singers do, which is like, you’re the alto and you are the soprano and then you stay there. We would take our parts and start as the soprano and the alto, and then in the middle of the song, we would switch. It was sort of this magical thing that happened between us. We didn’t talk about it, we just did it. People noticed, and it was really one of those unique partnerships. 

That was such a peak time for Leonard, starting with “I’m Your Man” and on into “The Future” in the early ‘90s. It was such a renaissance that was happening for him. 

Well, not here, not not in the United States. In Europe, we was playing stadiums in 1988 with “I’m Your Man.” The sound is awful and no one should ever play a stadium, but that’s how popular he was. Then we’d come to the States and we would do the tiniest, crappiestlittle places. I think he got very depressed when we got to the U.S. and things were completely different all of a sudden. We were staying in terrible places and dangerous neighborhoods, while in Europe we were in beautiful, first class hotels. We had the touring bus that the Pope had used. It was all very fancy, and then so we get to the States and it’s not all that great. No wonder Leonard went straight to the mountains with all the Buddhists after that last tour we did.

Then the story broke that his manager took all his money.  It was in the New York Times and every newspaper in the country had that story in it. It was, I think, directly related to that that people thought, “Oh my God, this poor man” — and then they took notice of Leonard Cohen and how brilliant he was. It was kind of a strange reality that that story brought him to the forefront of people’s minds in the U.S. From there, he sold out every concert that he did in big halls in the U.S. and all over the world. His last few years, ticket sales-wise, were his highest grossing. 

A twofold question. Did you have a favorite song to sing when you were touring with him? And then, do you have a favorite song of his to sing in your repertoire now?

You know, I think it’s hard to pick a favorite — it changes every time I sing any of his songs because all of them seem to have a new meaning. “Bird on the Wire,” of course, I have a very soft spot in my heart for, because that’s how he tricked me into starting to sing Cohen, and getting addicted to it.

I have to say, when singing “The Night Comes On” — and it was very rare that we sang that song — there was something so vulnerable about it. When I sang that with Leonard, I almost burst into tears every time, because I felt like it was a very personal story for him. “Go back to the world” — it’s just so beautiful and so moving.

How about a personal favorite on your new album?

I love “Take This Waltz,” because it is his loving translation of that (Federico García) Lorca poem. Leonard credits with ruining his life, because that’s how he got hooked on poetry, by reading Lorca as a teenager. “Take This Waltz,” I think that was also a song that I absolutely adored singing with Leonard. I always think that Leonard writes very much like Lorca wrote.

As far as timing, does “Democracy” have special meaning for you during election year?

Oh God, yeah. We’re all hoping it happens [referring to the “Democracy is coming to the USA” punchline]. We’re really hoping that democracy survives, and that’s why it was so important to me that we do it. … It’s very hopeful. The chorus of “Sail on, O mighty ship of state” gives me goosebumps, just thinking about it.

You wrote two songs yourself for the album, on top of all the Leonard covers.

I wrote “Awakened” because, to me, anyone that decides they’re going to be an artist, it’s a very courageous decision, because why would anyone pick this life? It’s very difficult. And in many ways, Leonard awakened my creativity and the thought that I could do this. He was very encouraging the beginning. And “The L of Your First Name” is a song that I wrote with my friend Deborah Holland, just about my relationship with Leonard. I wanted to put into words how deep a bond we have, and how he’s with me every single day.  

It’s good to hear that lasted. Because we don’t take it for granted that familiarity always breeds affection when musicians work together a long period of years.

That’s very true. And, you know, he didn’t always stay friends with everybody. As a matter of fact, at his memorial, he had his manager read a letter to the band members that had toured with him the last couple of years, which said, “I’m really sorry that I wasn’t available to sit with you and dine with you and hang out.” We got the best of Leonard back in the day. It was like a big family: We ate together, drank together, played music together. It was as though it was the great old days of touring. And then by the time he felt like he had to go back out on the road and do this (to cover his finances), he was already sick, and it was very difficult for him. He asked me, “How do I go on the road and keep my energy up and stay able to do this?” I said, “You don’t talk to people. That’s how you do it.” It takes so much energy to be around people. So (in his last years), the minute he finished a show, he got in the car and was off to his hotel. So I feel like I was very lucky.

You’re doing this New York concert with Patrick Page. Any chance that people Los Angeles might get to see something, tribute-wise, at some point? 

We’re brewing a concert up. I can’t talk about it yet or who’ll be on it, but there’s something that’s gonna happen in April, and it’ll be something big. So there’s more to come.