SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2014 Leonard Cohen says touring has improved his mood eonard Cohen, who returned to performing after a 15-year next week: “Yes, does anybody have a cigarette? hiatus in 2008, says touring has improved his mood. “Well, “But quite seriously, does anyone know where you can buy a Lgetting back on the road has improved my mood consider- Turkish or Greek cigarette?” he said to laughs. “I’m looking for- ably because I was never good at civilian life,” says Cohen, who ward to that first smoke. I’ve been thinking about that for 30 turns 80 next week. The Canadian songwriter spoke Thursday at a years. It’s one of the few consistent strings of thoughts I’ve been listening event in New York City for his new album, “Popular able to locate.” His new album was produced by Patrick Problems,” to be released Tuesday. The “Hallelujah” performer Leonard, best known for working with Madonna. He said he did- was full of good cheer at Joe’s Pub, providing laughs for the small n’t originally plan on releasing “Popular Problems” the same crowd of journalists and music industry players. week of his birthday. “It was a happy accident,” he said. “In my The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, best known for his dark poetic family, we have a very charitable approach to birthdays - we lyrics, discovered in 2004 that most of his retirement fund had ignore them.”— AP This July 5, 2013 file photo shows Canadian songwriter disappeared in a disputed case of mismanagement. His solution Leonard Cohen performing at the Auditorium Stravinski dur- was to return to touring. Cohen, who vowed to start smoking ing the 47th Montreux Jazz Festival in Montreux, when he turned 80, told the crowd when asked if he would start Switzerland. — AFP Q&A: Barbra Streisand, the feminist, sings on

arbra Streisand’s new album of duets only includes male scene? singers, but it wasn’t a conscious effort to exclude females. Streisand: Well, the problem is there aren’t more. I swear to B“Everyone we asked was ... busy,” Streisand said. The per- God I read a survey a few months ago, like less than 6 percent of former almost scored one major diva: Beyonce. “She had her peo- women are directing films today, and that was (the same as) in ple try to do a track of one of the songs from my movie, ‘A Star is the time I did “Yentl.” Born,’ and it just, we didn’t have the time to finish it, to get it right,” she said. “We had to release the album. Maybe someday AP: Why do you think that is? we’ll do a duet because she’s so great.” Streisand: I think women are still treated as second-class citi- Lenny Kravitz “Partners,” released Tuesday, features Billy Joel, Stevie zens. We still don’t get equal pay. Thank God I am in the music Wonder, John Mayer, John Legend and Babyface, who produced industry, so it’s a bit different, but I’m fortunate in that way. The the album. In a recent interview with The Associated Press, average woman doesn’t get the same pay; she gets 77 cents on Lenny Kravitz back Streisand talked about music, directing, women’s right and poli- the dollar that a man gets. I’m so involved in women’s heart dis- tics. ease and trying to raise awareness and funds; Even in medical research, women are not treated equally. The research on with new album at 50 AP: Would you do an album full of female duets next? women’s hearts is done in the last 50 years on men. ...So since Streisand: (Pauses) Possibly. I loved singing with Celine (Dion) women are 51 percent of the population I think we should really t 50, Lenny Kravitz is an American in Paris. Now, after turns and Donna Summer. have that represented in Congress as well. designing shoes and acting in “The Hunger Games”, he’s Areturned to music with a new album he says just poured out of AP: What was the energy like in the studio for you and AP: Speaking of politics, have you spoken to Hillary him during shooting of the box office smash. Best known for the 1991 your guests? Clinton whether she’ll run for president? single “It Ain’t Over ‘til It’s Over”, Kravitz says inspiration struck on set Streisand: We were all nervous. Everybody was saying to me, Streisand: I would love her to run. I think we have advanced as he played Cinna, the stylist to Jennifer Lawrence’s heroine. “I wasn’t “I’m nervous singing with you!” And I said, “Whoops, I’m nervous with Obama, and I think people are giving him a hard time, which even planning on making an album. I was just working on the film. In singing with you.” ...I love that kind of nervousness. You know is not fair because this Affordable Care Act is working and it’s the night, just all this music...,” he told AFP in an interview in Paris. something’s being done for posterity. I guess that’s why I like going to help a lot of people. But it’s like Greek tragedy, you Kravitz, who played Cinna in two of the trilogy’s films, describes making movies, too, because it lasts. know, they always try to bring down the gods, bring down the the album, entitled “Strut”, as “grit and glamour, all together” plus “a kings, bring down the leaders. lot of sensuality”. He appears on the cover in a black and white photo- AP: How have you maintained your voice over the years? graph, displaying a large tattoo on his bare chest and dressed in a Streisand: I don’t drink. I don’t like the taste of liquor. I don’t AP: Do you feel like he’s doing a good job? dinner jacket and dark glasses. He says the music itself is about love drink wine even. Maybe that has something to do with it. I Streisand: I do. And it’s right to take your time going to war and relationships. smoked when I was 10 years old, you know on the streets, on the and so forth. He has to be thoughtful. — AP “All the different dynamics that you would have from lust to heart- rooftops in Brooklyn because my stepfather smoked ... gave it up break to desperation to devotion to misunderstood love,” he said. when I was 12. Kravitz has been living in Paris on and off for nine years and his last video was set in the city. “I think it’s a pretty sexy city, aesthetically it’s AP: Was it weird singing along with Elvis Presley’s vocals gorgeous... the architecture, the design... it’s very inspiring...” he said. on “Love Me Tender”? After nearly a decade, Kravitz is very much at home in France; in Streisand: No, it just felt right. It felt natural. I met him. I talked 2011 was awarded France’s highest cultural honour-the Order of Arts to him. I wanted him for a movie. and Letters. “I don’t feel foreign anymore. Now when I come, I just feel like I’m going home, because I am!” But he says he still cherishes the AP: What movie? “feeling I get being not from here”. Streisand: It was “A Star is Born” many, many years ago. His career was slightly in decline, he was overweight and I thought he ‘Never felt better’ was perfect to play that part. ...It was fun to talk to him. He was Writing his tenth album, which is due to be released on Tuesday, talking about the process of how people don’t understand that the songs came very naturally. “Every time I make an album, it’s you need time and quiet before you perform. And he was talking always different. This album just happened like this!” he said. “I won’t about a girl in his life who doesn’t understand that, and I said, “Oh call it easy but the flow was very good. Everything just came into my you really have to explain that and tell her it’s not personal; it’s head. I didn’t even have to think about it.... I just let it come out.” The just that you need to be quiet before you go onstage.” But it was last song on the album is a cover, something Kravitz says he rarely lovely to share these stories with each other. does. But an unexpected blast of the 1965 hit single by The Miracles, “Ooo Baby Baby”, left him marveling. “One morning early I was hav- AP: Are you planning to do more movies? ing my make up done for ‘Hunger Games’ and the make-up artist Streisand: I like directing. I’m planning to direct a move and was listening to a Motown station and it came on. “I hadn’t heard it also be in a couple of things maybe that I’ve meant to do over the for a long time (and) it sounded so beautiful,” he said. Although years. Kravitz has sold over 40 million albums he says he’s still hungry to make music.—AFP In this June 20, 2013 file photo, singer Barbra Streisand per- AP: Are you happy to see more female directors on the forms during her concert. — AP