Setting Sail

Edward Cohen was born in Houston, Texas, and raised all over the country before finding his footing as a songwriter in Portland, Oregon. By 15, he had already begun writing lyrics and teaching himself guitar, playing along with his father’s vinyl collection of blues, rock ’n’ roll, and folk albums—records by the likes of Lightnin’ Hopkins, Howlin Wolf, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, and the Rolling Stones. What began as a teenage refuge grew into a way of life: through his twenties, Cohen toured across the country, both as a solo performer and with a rock band, Comanche Joey, whose sounds leaned toward bluesy psychedelia. He got by playing music, often sleeping in basements and on couches or floors, always with a guitar in reach.

In 2021, Cohen relocated to Colorado, where he began a path of recovery from the turmoil of his twenties, speckled with short-lived relapses and a constant struggle to stay sober. Those struggles are etched deeply into his songwriting, which often consists of both warning and hope. His music—stripped-down folk, blues, and Americana—is raw, confessional, and unflinching, drawing from influences like Townes Van Zandt, Lucinda Williams, Gram Parsons, Nick Cave, and the Velvet Underground. Themes of the human condition, mental illness, heartbreak, loneliness, yearning, and the beauty of nature recur in his songs, carried by his preference for the big resonance of jumbo acoustic guitars.

Cohen often closes his eyes while singing, as though stepping fully into the worlds his music creates. His songs are not polished escapes but lived-in truths, testaments to survival and the fragile joy of staying alive. He’s never “made it” in a commercial sense, but for Cohen, the act of writing and sharing music has always been a matter of staying afloat—and in that raw honesty, listeners find themselves reflected.