Cat Cohen

[David] Cat Cohen was born in the 1940s near downtown LA and called the City Of Angels home for six decades before resettling in the high desert above Palm Springs. As a child he played along the walk of stars on Hollywood Boulevard and rubbed shoulders with the entertainment world early on, making two guest appearances on Art Linkletter’s House Party TV show. At the age of ten his family moved to the Jewish neighborhood near Canter’s Deli on Fairfax Avenue where he learned to fish pickles out of a barrel and haggle prices at the local bakeries. His adolescence was spent in the San Fernando Valley before attending UCLA where he majored in music.

While enrolling in graduate school in classical composition he also played in a rock band six nights a week in Redondo Beach. After a stint in the Peace Corps, he lived in Santa Monica where he taught piano and wrote songs and musicals, many of which were recorded, produced, and performed (see below). For many years he taught songwriting at UCLA Extension and Musicians' Institute in Hollywood.

During the 1980s he was involved in the social movements of LA’s gay, HIV, and recovery communities, work that he continues in the Coachella Valley today. Currently, he blogs regularly on Personal Growth, Recovery, and Survival at his recovery website wrordpress.com and performs as a pop music therapist leading sing-alongs in hospitals, senior homes, and rehab centers.

Cat is an active member of the Palm Springs Writers Guild with eight self-published books on food, travel, music, and recovery. He has also been a longtime ASCAP songwriter with pop, R&B, jazz and blues songs cut by recording artists Cheryl Lynn, Syreeta, Freddie Hubbard, and Bo Diddley, and has had his work featured in the HBO movie The Rat Pack and the Universal feature film Undercover Brother.