40 years of Jackie Leven

I’ve been trying to write about the death of Jackie Leven and the impact it has had upon me, since he died in the middle of November in 2011. There’s a few drafts but nothing ready yet as it changes, sometimes radically from draft to draft.

Although I only talked to him at any length once, we exchanged some letters and he was very encouraging of my poems, which meant a great deal.

I saw almost every gig he played in London for a few years following the album launch gig for ‘The Mystery of Love is greater than the Mystery of Death’, his 1990s solo career come back.

The best of these gig was the two and a half hours at the 12 Bar, which was released in shortened form as ‘For peace comes dropping slow’. This remains the best gig I have ever seen by anyone.

Below is a link to my beginner’s guide to Jackie Leven for those who do not yet know and love his music. It features tracks ranging in date from his first album recorded in 1971, under the name Jon St Field, right though to his last album released in 2011.

The list includes tracks from albums by Jackie’s band Doll By Doll, possibly the most underappreciated great band in music history. They were born in the punk era but were not punk, or post punk but in a genre all their own, a genre at once startlingly beautiful and terrifying.