Lawrence Cohn is best known as head of Legacy Recordings

Legacy Recordings

Legacy Recordings is Sony Music Entertainment's catalog division. It was founded in 1990 by CBS Records under the leadership of Jerry Shulman, Richard Bauer, Gary Pacheco and Amy Herot to handle reissues of recordings from the vast catalogues of Columbia Records, Epic Records and associated...

, a branch of Sony Music Entertainment

Sony Music Entertainment

Sony Music Entertainment ' is the second-largest global recorded music company of the "big four" record companies and is controlled by Sony Corporation of America, the United States subsidiary of Japan's Sony Corporation....

 and as creator and producer of the Roots 'n' Blues series.

Cohn was educated as a jurist and became vice-president of CBS

CBS

CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

/Epic records

Epic Records

Epic Records is an American record label, owned by Sony Music Entertainment. Though it was originally conceived as a jazz imprint, it has since expanded to represent various genres. L.A...

 and later head of Playboy Records and Music

Playboy Records

Playboy Records was a record label in Los Angeles, California, and a unit of Playboy Enterprises. Artists recording for the label included Barbi Benton, Blue Ash, Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers, Brenda Patterson, Jeanne French , Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds, Ivory, Wynn Stewart, Mickey Gilley...

. He also continued a career as producer, writer and critic. He wrote Movietone Presents of the Twentieth Century (New York : Saint Martin's Press, 1976) and edited Nothing but the blues : the music and the musicians (New York : Abbeville Press, 1993).

He has been nominated seven times at the Grammy Awards, winning the Grammy Award for Best Historical Album

Grammy Award for Best Historical Album

The Grammy Award for Best Historical Album has been presented since 1979. During this time the award had several minor name changes:*In 1979 the award was known as Best Historical Repackage Album*In 1980 it was awarded as Best Historical Reissue...

 in 1991 with his recording Robert Johnson : The Complete Recordings

The Complete Recordings (Robert Johnson album)

The Complete Recordings is a compilation album by American blues musician Robert Johnson, released August 28, 1990 on Columbia Records. The album's recordings were recorded in two sessions in Dallas and San Antonio, Texas for the American Record Company during 1936 and 1937. Most of the songs were...

. He received the same year the W. C. Handy Award

W. C. Handy Award

The Blues Music Awards are presented by the Blues Foundation, a non-profit organization set up to foster the blues and its heritage. The awards were started by the Blues Foundation in 1980, and are widely regarded as the highest honor for blues artists in the United States.The awards were formerly...

 for this work on Robert Johnson and was honored with a special distinction by the Blues Foundation

Blues Foundation

The Blues Foundation is an American nonprofit corporation, headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee, that is affiliated with more than 175 Blues organizations from various parts of the world....

 for his "contribution to the blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

." Moreover, Sony Music provided him the first President's Award for his work on Robert Johnson.