Leonard Cohen, 82, singer-songwriter of 'Hallelujah'

Leonard Cohen, 82, a singer-songwriter whose literary sensibility and elegant dissections of desire made him one of popular music's most influential and admired figures for four decades, has died.

Mr. Cohen's death was announced Thursday night on his official Facebook page. The cause of death was not released.

In songs such as "Suzanne," "Bird on the Wire," and "Hallelujah," and in his poems and two novels, the Montreal-born artist provided a rarefied alternative to more accessible troubadours, employing meticulous language to plumb the vagaries of life.

His dry, monotone voice, which over the years deepened to a cigarette-charred whisper, contributed to his popular image as a depressed - and depressing - artist. He teasingly alluded to that stereotype in one of his songs, referring to "the patron saint of envy and the grocer of despair."

Humor was in fact abundant, if subtle, in his work, along with a prominent vein of spirituality and, especially later in his life, a penetrating social and political eye.

Despite his stature among critics and other artists, Mr. Cohen struggled to find an audience for much of his career. But he enjoyed a late renaissance, as a young generation of musicians, including Nick Cave, Rufus Wainwright, R.E.M., and U2, discovered him in the 1990s.

More mainstream figures, including Billy Joel, Sting, and Elton John, joined the chorus on the 1996 tribute album Tower of Song. A 2006 documentary, Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man, reasserted his renewed prominence, and his tour in 2008 and 2009 offered marathon concerts that drew high acclaim.

His "Hallelujah" became a cult hit when it was covered by musician Jeff Buckley in 1994, singing an arrangement by John Cale, and has become a modern standard since, an unending staple on YouTube videos, reality shows, and high school choir concerts.

Just last month, Inquirer music critic Dan DeLuca gave high praise to the ailing Mr. Cohen's latest album, You Want It Darker, writing, "It's hard to believe an artist completely prepared to depart would be capable of making music that is this vital and, in its own stubborn way, full of life."

If his fans were captivated by Mr. Cohen's career dramas, they were also intrigued by the dichotomy he presented in his personal life - sophisticated ladies' man and ascetic Zen Buddhist.

He never married but was known for a succession of relationships with notable women, including singers Joni Mitchell and Janis Joplin, artist Suzanne Elrod (the mother of his two children), actress Rebecca De Mornay and, most recently, singer Anjani Thomas.

In the mid-1990s he suspended his career and lived in a Buddhist monastery, where he became a monk.

He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008. He won a Grammy as a guest singer on Herbie Hancock's 2007 album, River: The Joni Letters.

"There are very, very few people who occupy the ground that Leonard Cohen walks on," U2 singer Bono said in the 2006 documentary. ". . . This is our Shelley, this is our Byron."