Perla Batalla's Letter to Leonard Cohen

Happy 90th Birthday, Leonard!

The ease and comfort which Perla Batalla brings to Leonard Cohen songs on A Letter to Leonard Cohen: To a Friend sounds so intimate and personal that it had to be an inside job.

In many ways, it was. The album was released yesterday to streaming services, in time to celebrate Cohen's 90th birthday on Sept. 21. He mentored her, and encouraged her solo career.

Batalla has been singing Cohen's songs since 1988, when she got a call from Roscoe Beck, Cohen's bass player and a key member of his touring group. Batalla's friend Julie Christensen recommended her to be the other part of the duo that would add richness and range, color and cream, to Cohen's craggy but hypnotic concert vocals. They were more like sidemen, or rather, side-women, collaborators rather than "backup singers" in the band, which was going to leave for Europe in two weeks.

Photo: Nancy Santullo, courtesy of Perla Batalla

In a Zoom interview last week from her California home, Batalla said she agreed to Beck's request to just…