When Leonard Cohen turned to music at 32, his friends thought it was a phase

Leonard Cohen launched his music career on the CBC in mid-'60s, and by the 1970s he was a bonafide music star. In Europe. It would take Canadians a few more years to celebrate Cohen as a national treasure.

At 32, when writing couldn't pay the bills, Cohen turned to a career in music. "I thought that, you know, maybe I'd be able to make a living as a singer."

For those who knew Cohen as a poet, it was difficult to imagine him as a musician. Even close friends like Adrienne Clarkson were initially sceptical. When she invited him to perform for the first time on television — CBC's Take 30, which she co-hosted with Paul Soles — Clarkson admits she thought it was just a phase."We all said, 'He's a poet; he's a novelist. Why is he thinking he can sing?'"

But writing, especially in experimental forms, was not going to cut it in 1960s Canada. The Montreal poet's second novel, Beautiful Losers, was met with contempt by conservative Canadian critics, one even describing it as "the most revolting book ever written in Canada."

Cohen, however. seemed to embrace his anti-establishment status and even refused to accept the prestigious Governor General's Award for Poetry or Drama in 1968. He had consulted the poems, he said, and they had told him to turn it down.

Stardom at 70

His romantic "chansonnier" style made sense for Europeans. But could this wandering Canadian find success at the scale of the biggest acts of the day? Clarkson says that Cohen doubted he would ever fill a venue of more than 4,000 people.

"It took a long time for us to realize Leonard Cohen was somebody who would be, would be appreciated with time, but not perhaps right then."

At 70 years old, after years living in a Zen monastery, Cohen discovered that his life savings had been pilfered by an unscrupulous manager. He was broke and had to return to the stage. And it was then, nearly 40 years after he first sang for Canadians on CBC Television, that he truly claimed his iconic status.

"His concerts sold out here. Those concerts lasted three hours, three-hours-and-a-half sometimes. And, he just gave everything in them," says Clarkson.