Jackie Leven

Jackie Leven was a Scottish singer/songwriter, storyteller, traveler, and raconteur. A formidable fingerstyle guitarist, he was a large man possessed of a mellifluous baritone singing voice that could alternately frighten a crowd, make a grown man weep, and lull an infant. His shows and recordings were peppered with engaging stories from his epic life, the road, miners, shop workers, farmers, history, folklore, lost and displaced people, the shelter and harshness of the natural world, terminal loneliness, and the insights of barroom philosophers. (He would regularly publish the names of favorite pubs on his album sleeves.) Stylistically his mercurial work crisscrossed and combined Celtic folk, blues, rock, doo wop, soul, girl group pop, and country. During the late 1970s he co-founded art punk outfit Doll by Doll with guitarist Jo Shaw. They issued four acclaimed albums including 1979's Gypsy Blood. His solo career began with 1994's The Mystery of Love Is Greater Than the Mystery of Death, and included 1995's Forbidden Songs of the Dying West and 1997's Fairytales for Hard Men in an unofficial trilogy about the fragility of masculinity, a recurring theme in his work. 2000's Defending Ancient Springs, 2001's Creatures of Light & Darkness, and 2002's Shining Brother, Shining Sister all featured collaborations with Pere Ubu's David Thomas. Jackie Leven Said, a live collaboration with author Ian Rankin, appeared in 2005. Wayside Shrines and the Code of the Travelling Man was released in September of 2011. Jackie Leven was born Alan Moffatt in Kirkcaldy, Scotland in 1950, in the Pictish region he called "the Kingdom of Fife," a few miles southwest of the River Leven. Though he was Scottish, his parents were English of Irish and Romany ancestry. During his elementary school years, he was a classmate of future British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. A rebellious youth, Leven claimed to be the first Scottish student expelled from school for drug use. He got in trouble early and often. When British jazzman Ted Heath came to visit his school and they were introduced, the elder man asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. Leven replied that he'd like to be one of those men you see standing outside the pubs in a wee flat cap. Heath laughed nervously. Leven held a lifelong obsession with poetry. It ranged across literary traditions internationally, from Robert Burns and John Clare to Anna Akhmatova, Osip Mandelstam, the palm wine poets from Africa, and James Wright. He spent his adolescent days as a truant walking the glens and hills and along rivers. This wandering became critical to his songwriting process later on. Leven began playing guitar in his early teens, influenced and encouraged by his mother's Elvis Presley and Lightnin' Hopkins records. He taught himself to sing by listening repeatedly to Fontella Bass' 1965 soul hit "Rescue Me." Soon he was playing in local bands and performing his own songs in local folk clubs. Unfortunately, this activity also brought him to the attention of sectarian local street gangs, who harassed him inside and outside clubs and threatened him with violence. He ultimately left Scotland. He was married for the first time at 16 and fathered a child, but didn't stick around long. (He and his son Simon later reconciled.) This precipitated years of busking, rootless wandering, sleeping rough, and living hand to mouth. He spent time in Ireland, Berlin, and Madrid. In Spain he recorded his acid folk debut album Control as John St. Field. Eventually landing in London, he spent four months squatting in South Bank Centre where he busked for a living. He squatted in different locations across the U.K. He met guitarist and composer Jo Shaw in a folk club in Dorset and they hit it off while discussing Jimi Hendrix and Van Morrison. They shared a farmhouse together and formed Doll by Doll with drummer David McIntosh and bassist Tony Waite. One of the most misunderstood, rebellious, and incendiary bands of the post-punk era, they signed first to the WEA-distributed Automatic Record Co. and released both Remember and Gypsy Blood in 1979. While some U.K. critics embraced them, others recoiled because of a stylistic diversity that ranged from roots and garage rock to prog pop-rock anthems to folk, punk, and funk with glorious multi-part harmonies, stellar guitar interplay, and Leven's always-thought-provoking lyrics. Their live gigs were so intense and confrontational they could be dangerous: Leven and Shaw openly taunted confused and/or hostile audience members. After falling out with Automatic they signed with the Universal-distributed Magnet and delivered their self-titled outing in 1981. The singles "Main Traveled Roads" (whose melody was taken from the Scottish air "The Bonnie Earl of Moray"), and the funky "Caritas" actually won airplay from John Peel but didn't sell. Pickled in alcohol, wasted on psychedelic drugs, and haunted by violence at gigs, they were kicked off tours with Devo and Hawkwind and finally split up. With another album to deliver for Magnet, Leven entered the studio with a cast that included Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour, saxophonist Mel Collins, vocalist Maggie Riley, and keyboardist/vocalist Helen Turner (Style Council, Etienne Daho). With no promotion or tour support, Grand Passion was deleted as soon as it was released. Undaunted, Leven signed to Charisma as a solo artist. In 1983 he released the single "Love Is Shining Down on Me" as a precursor to a solo album. One night after a mixing session, Leven was jumped in an alley, had his throat slashed, and was savagely beaten by a gang. The assault caused damage to his larynx, leaving him unable to sing. The unmixed album, tentatively titled The Robberies of the Rain, was shelved (it saw a brief unofficial release in 2005). Leven entered a period of deep despair and became addicted to heroin. By sheer will power and assistance from acupuncture, reflexology, and other holistic means, he beat his habit. With his then-partner Carol Wolf (herself a recovering addict) they founded the CORE Trust charity and addicts' college. The charity's most famous patron was Princess Diana, and after her death, Prince Charles, who added it to the Prince's Trust. Leven served in many capacities as spokesperson, secretary, board chairman, and fundraiser, and CORE remains a going concern well into the 21st century. Around this time, he lost his girlfriend to the Dalai Lama's bodyguard, who left him a tape of Robert Bly's men's movement manifesto Iron John. Leven listened to it and was knocked out by what he heard. From there he encountered the work of depth psychologist and men's movement co-founder James Hillman, and became a spokesman in the U.K. himself. No mere chestbeater, throughout his life Leven had witnessed firsthand the tragic lives of "hard men" who, unable to express vulnerability or honest emotion due to social mores, engaged in unhealthy, self-destructive, violent behavior which they often inflicted on women and children. In 1988, while trying to rehabilitate himself as a singer, he, Shaw, McIntosh, and Sex Pistols' bassist Glen Matlock released a three-song EP as Concrete Bulletproof Invisible, but Leven didn't have the time or energy to pursue a band. His real return to recording would be in the 1990s as a solo act. In late 1993, Leven signed with Martin Goldschmidt's U.K. independent label Cooking Vinyl, after being pursued by him for two years. His first release for the label was 1994's The Mystery of Love Is Greater Than the Mystery of Death. While Leven was still unable to employ his famous falsetto (it would eventually return), his baritone retained its smooth, tender, mellifluous quality. The album included guest spots from the Waterboys' Mike Scott and Bly (the latter read a poem from Sufi poet Hafiz entitled "Clay Jug" that Leven had set to music). It also included a stellar version of the Bacharach/David classic "I Say a Little Prayer." Leven had already met his future life partner and collaborator, jazz singer Deborah Greenwood; her vocals would grace most of his future albums. 1995's Forbidden Songs of the Dying West is arguably Leven's masterpiece. It contains 16 focused songs in a cycle about loneliness, redemption, travel, Celtic mysticism, the solace and torture of the pub, romantic and familial love, and prison. It also contains "Working Alone." Subtitled "A Blessing," it contains a reading of James Wright's best-known poem as its centerpiece. Other songs also have lyrics from poems by Emily Dickinson and Louis MacNiece. Some of his collaborators on the date include Scott, James Hallawell, Eddi Reader, and the Mevagissey Male Choir. 1998's Fairytales for Hard Men concluded the unofficial fragile masculinity trilogy, and contained some of his finest songs in "Poortoun," "Desolation Blues," and "Saint Judas" (its lyrics, too, were drawn from a Wright poem). Well-known for his sense of humor, it was around this time that Leven talked to the press about building a distillery for his own brand of scotch called Leven's Lament: The Lonely Spirit of the Glens. It was a scam: He'd had labels printed up and slapped on promotional bottles of unknown provenance. Given his general gregariousness and wicked sense of humor, he was quickly forgiven. In the aftermath of Fairytales' release, Cooking Vinyl licensed and re-released 1971's Control, and the Argyll Cycle, Vol. 1 compilation, composed of studio and unreleased tracks. Further, Leven's fan club set up Haunted Valley Records with his approval and participation, to issue exclusive live recordings. Their releases continued across his final two decades. Leven rambled across Europe and the U.K. almost constantly, playing bars to pockets of devoted fans. Germany and Norway were his two biggest markets and he could play small halls and theaters as well. His shows were rambling affairs filled with originals, covers, storytelling, crowd participation, lots of alcohol, and an intense moodiness that went from light to dark at the drop of a hat. 1998's Night Lilies featured extensive backing and harmony vocals from Greenwood -- especially on its glorious single "Universal Blue" -- and marked a recorded reunion with Shaw, who played guitar on the set after the previous year's Doll by Doll reunion shows. Leven had found a permanent home with Greenwood in an 18th century Hampshire cottage; she reported, however, that when writing, he would often leave for days at a time and sleep in the fields. 2000's Defending Ancient Springs was co-produced by Pere Ubu's David Thomas -- he also sang and played accordion on the date -- it also featured contributions from Peter Hammill, Shaw, and Michael Cosgrave. Its opener and lead single was a version of the Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Loving Feeling" sung as a duet with Thomas. 2001's Creatures of Light & Darkness was actually co-billed to "Jackie Leven with David Thomas." Among his most poignant albums, it included the provocative "The Sexual Loneliness of Jesus Christ," wherein Leven sings in the first person as Christ, who weighs his short life amid the unfolding of history and submitting to the predestined will of his father. It also included the homage to Leven's father "My Spanish Dad," and the harrowing live staple "Exit Wound." 2003's Shining Brother, Shining Sister marked his final collaboration with Thomas. Ron Sexsmith, Bly, Shaw, Greenwood, and Cosgrave all participated in the recording sessions. Scottish crime novelist Ian Rankin -- whose flawed yet soulful protagonist John Rebus could easily have been one of Leven's characters -- heard it and was so impressed, he wrote episodes into his next novel where Rebus listens to Leven's music. The songwriter saw his name mentioned in Rankin's novel while on a plane and got in touch. They became fast friends and started performing together. In 2005 Leven released Elegy for Johnny Cash in tribute to one of his songwriting heroes. Leven recorded only originals on the set but wrote from the solitary everyman's point of view that Cash often did. His production strategy employed mariachi horns (à la "Ring of Fire") on select tracks. That same year, Jackie Leven Said, a live double album from his performances with Rankin, appeared. Introduced by Rankin's shorty story of the same title, it featured selections from the author's novels, Leven's songs, and musical interludes. Oh, What a Blow That Phantom Dealt Me! appeared in 2006, played by a small band that included Greenwood and Cosgrave; its lineup also included vocals by outlaw Americana singer/songwriter Johnny Dowd. Leven also released Songs for Lonely Americans, the first of three albums credited to his alter ego, Sir Vincent Lone. The alias was borne of necessity as a way to break up an already intense release schedule. Lone's second album, When the Bridegroom Comes (Songs for Women) arrived in 2007, followed by Troubadour Heart in 2008; the latter appeared almost simultaneously with Leven's Lovers at the Gun Club. All of these releases dove deep into the concept of toxic shame and its propensity to poison relationships between human beings. Leven continued to write at fever pitch whether touring -- a near constant -- sitting in a pub, or at home in his music room; he was demo'ing a remarkable amount of material. Gothic Road appeared in 2010. It included some of his best-known late songs including "Absolutely Joan Crawford (With a Bit of Tilda Swinton on the Side)," "John Paul Getty's Silver Cadillac," and "Song for Bass Guitar and Death." That same year, Leven decided to quit drinking and did, just as he'd freed himself from heroin addiction two decades earlier. Leven continued touring. In February of 2011, he began to complain of being tired, but soldiered on. After receiving a diagnosis of advanced prostate cancer, Leven still toured and discussed his illness. He and Cosgrave cut Wayside Shrines and the Code of the Travelling Man that spring and summer. It appeared in September, just two months before Leven died on November 11. He was 61. In typical fashion, the big man had a show scheduled at the Green Hotel in Kinross on the very evening he passed, and he'd had every intention of playing it. The compilation Heroes Can Be Any Size appeared in 2012, and in 2021, in commemoration of the tenth anniversary of his passing, a fan-sourced compilation entitled Straight Outta Caledonia appeared under license from Cooking Vinyl.
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