year on the album charts, as well as a cult favourite in the US. He appeared on BBC TV in 1968 where he sang a duet from the album with Julie Felix. Several of the songs on that first album were recorded by other popular folk artists, including James Taylor and Judy Collins. Cohen followed up that first album with Songs from a Room (1969, featuring the often-recorded "Bird on the Wire") and Songs of Love and Hate (1971). In 1971, film director Robert Altman featured the songs "The Stranger Song", "Winter Lady", and "Sisters of Mercy", originally recorded for Songs of Leonard Cohen, in McCabe & Mrs. Miller. The film is now considered a masterpiece by some critics who also note that the songs are integral to the film. Scott Tobias wrote in 2014 that "The film is unimaginable to me without the Cohen songs, which function as these mournful interstitials that unify the entire movie." Tim Grierson wrote in 2016, shortly after Cohen's death, that '"Altman's and Cohen's legacies would forever be linked by McCabe. The movie is inextricably connected to Cohen's songs. It's impossible to imagine Altman's masterpiece without them." In 1970, Cohen toured for the first time, in the United States, Canada, and Europe, and appeared at the Isle of Wight Festival. In 1972 he toured again in Europe and Israel. When his performance in Israel did not seem to be going well he walked off the stage, went to his dressing room, and took some LSD. He then heard the audience clamouring for his reappearance by singing to him in Hebrew, and under the influence of the psychedelic, he returned to finish the show. Additionally, in 1973, he played special performances for Israeli soldiers in the outposts of Sinai during the Yom Kippur War. In 1973, Columbia Records released Cohen's first concert album, Live Songs. Then beginning around 1974, Cohen's collaboration with pianist and arranger John Lissauer created a live sound praised by the critics. They toured together in 1974 in Europe and in US and Canada in late 1974 and early 1975, in support of Cohen's record New Skin for the Old Ceremony. In late 1975 Cohen and Lissauer performed a short series of shows in the US and Canada with a new band, in support of Cohen's Best Of release. The tour included new songs from an album in progress, co-written by Cohen