Jackie Leven

Jackie Leven performs in the Musician Tent at the Summer Sundae, 2005

Jackie Leven, born June 18, 1950 in Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland is a Scottish songwriter and folk music musician.

Biography

Jackie Leven made his first forays into the music business in the late 1960s under the pseudonym "John St Field" and recorded one album, Control, in 1971. Leven admits this is probably his favourite album and he loves the bass playing, which is all his.

In the following years he travelled, but enthusiastic about punk, he formed the band Doll by Doll in 1978. Despite having a unique and powerful live act, this band never broke through to the mainstream. They released four albums between 1979 and 1982. Blending LSD visions, folk, blues, Celtic, psychedelic and punk influences the band, which featured Leven as main songwriter, often explored the darker side of human nature ("Butcher Boy", "Sleeping Partners", "The Palace of Love"), contrasted with the tough, almost macho tenderness of songs such as "Stripshow", "Chances" and "Hey Sweetheart".

After Doll by Doll disintegrated in 1983, Leven embarked on his solo career. However, a vicious and unprovoked assault in the street during the recording of his first solo album in 1984 left him unable to speak for nearly two years - the after-effects of near strangulation. During this time he slid into heroin addiction. Despite this he managed to collaborate with fellow ex-Doll by Dolls Joe Shaw and David Macintosh plus ex-Sex Pistol Glen Matlock to release the single "Big Tears" under the name "Concrete Bulletproof Invisible". The record was a Melody Maker single of the week in 1988. He eventually cured himself of his addiction though a mixture of acupuncture and psychic healing: this led him to form the CORE Trust, which favours a holistic approach to the treatment of heroin addiction.

In 1994 his solo career started in earnest with the release of the album The Mystery of Love is Greater than the Mystery of Death, which earned much critical praise. Since then he has been extremely prolific, releasing another 15 official albums, including a joint album with crime writer Ian Rankin Jackie Leven Said, featuring the keyboards of Michael Cosgrave. In addition to these official releases, he has released a number of limited edition, fanclub-only live albums through the Haunted Valley fanzine and website.

In 2006 Leven released the album Songs For Lonely Americans using the pseudonym "Sir Vincent Lone". A second Sir Vincent Lone CD, When The Bridegroom Comes (Songs For Women), was recorded a year later: initially sold only at live shows, it proved so successful that it eventually saw commercial release by his record company, Cooking Vinyl. This is what Leven had to say about the Sir Vincent pseudonym on the Cooking Vinyl webpage:

A Message From Jackie Leven

Some years ago I noticed that I was writing a lot more songs than I was ever going to record and get released, especially in these times where you can only release one studio album every eighteen months. As I am a writer of genius, this began to worry me more and more. So I went to see my Cooking Vinyl boss, Martin Goldschmidt, to ask him if I could make more records. He said no. I said to him 'look, The Beatles once released four albums in one year, and nobody said to them, hey that's too many records in one year'. Martin said 'Jackie, this is not 1967 and you are not The Beatles'. We talked some more and we agreed that I could make records under a different name - that name is Sir Vincent Lone.

Leven's most recent release, in 2008, is the album Lovers at the Gun Club.

Guitar details

Leven plays in an open E tuning whose notes are, from lowest to highest, E Ab B E Ab B (as told by Jackie himself). This tuning gives many very distinctive voicings and a unique playing style.

Discography

As John St Field

• Control (Cooking Vinyl, 1971)

As a member of Doll by Doll

• Remember (Automatic, 1979)
• Gypsy Blood (Automatic, 1979)
• Doll By Doll (Magnet, 1980)
• Grand Passion (Magnet, 1982)
• Revenge of Memory (Live at The Sheffield Limits Club 1980) (Haunted Valley, 2005)

As a solo artist

Commercial releases

• The Mystery of Love Is Greater Than The Mystery of Death (Cooking Vinyl, 1994)
• Forbidden Songs of The Dying West (Cooking Vinyl, 1995)
• Songs from the Argyll Cycle, Vol. 1 (Cooking Vinyl, 1996)
• Fairytales For Hardmen (Cooking Vinyl, 1997)
• Night Lilies (Cooking Vinyl, 1998)
• Defending Ancient Springs (Cooking Vinyl, 2000)
• Creatures of Light And Darkness (Cooking Vinyl, 2000)
• Shining Brother, Shining Sister (Cooking Vinyl, 2003)
• For Peace Comes Dropping Slow (Cooking Vinyl, 2004)
• Songs For Lonely Americans (Cooking Vinyl, 2006) - as 'Sir Vincent Lone'
• Jackie Leven Said (Cooking Vinyl, 2005) - with Ian Rankin
• Elegy for Johnny Cash (Cooking Vinyl, 2005)
• Oh What a Blow That Phantom Dealt Me! (Cooking Vinyl, 2007)
• When the Bridegroom Comes (Cooking Vinyl, 2007)
• Chip Pan Fire - Jackie Balfour (Cooking Vinyl, 2007)
• Lovers at the Gun Club (Cooking Vinyl, 2008)

Fanclub-only releases

• Saint Judas: When I Went Out to Kill Myself (Haunted Valley, 1998)
• Man Bleeds in Glasgow (Haunted Valley, 1999) - as Jackie Leven and the Celtic Soulmen
• The Wanderer (Haunted Valley, 1999)
• Greek Notebook (Haunted Valley, 1999)
• Munich Blues (Haunted Valley, 2000)
• Deep In The Heart of Nowhere (Haunted Valley, 2001)
• Greetings From Milford (Haunted Valley, 2002) - with The Stornoway Girls
• Men in Prison (Live from Bergen Prison) (Haunted Valley, 2003)

Other releases

• The Meeting of Remarkable Men (DVD) (Cooking Vinyl, 2005)

External links

• Jackie Leven Official on MySpace
• Unofficial Jackie Leven site
• The CORE trust