Live Songs is Leonard Cohen's first live album, released during the three-year silence between Songs of Love and Hate and New Skin for the Old Ceremony. Background It was not until after the release of Cohen's second album, Songs From a Room in 1969, that the singer reluctantly agreed to tour. As recounted in Ira Nadel's 1996 biography Various Positions, Cohen's first major singing appearance at a Town Hall rally in New York City for the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy in April, 1967 had not gone well; he played a few bars of "Suzanne" and walked off, stricken with stage fright, only to be coaxed back on stage to finish the song by a sympathetic audience. Cohen finally bowed to the pressure to tour in 1970 but restricted himself to Europe, where his popularity was much higher than in the United States. Cohen would return to Europe again in 1972 and 1974. According to Anthony Reynolds book Leonard Cohen: A Remarkable Life, Cohen asked Bob Johnston, who had produced Songs From a Room, to assemble the band and play keyboards on the tour: "I ended up on the tour almost by accident," Reynolds quotes Johnston. "He asked me to manage him; then he asked me to get his band together. Getting ready, I had said to Cohen, 'Man, I'll get you the best piano player in the world.' 'No, I want you,' Leonard insisted. I protested: 'I can't play piano. I can bang around, but I can't play, and you've got great musicians here. They're wonderful people.' 'Either you come and play, or I won't go' was Cohen's response. I thought, 'Hell, I'm not gonna miss this.' So we started off. I just played piano and guitar and organ, whatever. I couldn't play very well, but he couldn't sing very well." Cohen is backed by a medium-sized, country-influenced group nicknamed The Army, which includes guitarist Ron Cornelius, guitarist/fiddler Charlie Daniels and vocalist "Jennifer Warren", who would soon become famous as Jennifer Warnes and a popular interpreter of Cohen's songs. Speaking to Mojo in November 2001, Cohen said of the female singers that supported him in concert, "I need them. I think my voice sounds better when I am somewhat obscured with the sounds of people who can actually sing. I have never had much competence. Personally when I listen to my songs, I'm always more comfortable when