‘The King of Love has died’ … Jackie Leven, Rest in Peace

Quote in title taken (and slightly altered) from Jackie's song, 'Some Ancient Misty Morning')

The Mystery of Love Is Greater Than the Mystery of Death

Larger than life in every way, especially in terms of his immeasurable talent, and a complete one-off, it’s hard to believe that someone who seemed more alive than most of us, and to me indestructible, is dead, this brave, lovely, completely genuine and incredibly gifted man. I felt better about the world just knowing he was in it so this is hard.

Since I found out Jackie was seriously ill, I’ve been unable to listen to more than a line from ‘Universal Blue’ without bursting into tears. I have the live version on the Deep in the Heart of Nowhere CD (quite different from the more uptempo and strangely cheerful studio one, actually a live version has just been added to YouTube) and his voice, so plaintive, goes straight to my heart. Somehow especially poignant and heart-rending in contrast to the light-hearted story that precedes it. Exquisitely melancholic. Now it’s very hard for me to hear his voice, which always had the ability to move me anyway, without sobbing. And who else is going to title a song ‘Young Male Suicide Blessed by Invisible Woman’?

I was introduced to Jackie’s music by a university friend who had all the Doll by Doll albums. Soon, I had them too but the band had already broken up without any success – their idiosyncratic talent out of step with the times as ever, too musically and lyrically accomplished for punk or New Wave and too rough-looking (they looked like a bunch of bruisers spoiling for a fight – you certainly wouldn’t want to mess with them) for an era of pastel suits, frilly shirts and floppy hair, neither a feel-good band in the 80s mould nor a pointlessly rebellious ‘what have you got?’ punk outfit. Way too real for people who wanted to escape, they pondered deeper questions with wit, eloquence and intelligence. From the anthemic ‘Main Travelled Roads' to the wild and thrilling ‘Gypsy Blood’, Jackie had this unerring ability to discern beauty in desolation and desolation in beauty, not to mention the elegiac in the everyday and the mythic in the moment (‘Some Ancient Misty Morning’), and express this in song while remaining something of an incurable romantic – ‘I do believe that lovers on the harbour wall were meant to be’ (‘Cool Skies’), I always imagined to refer to graffitied names on the wall but maybe there were real lovers, and ‘While the neon universe was winking to an end, And taxi drivers yawned from Earl’s Court to the Strand’, told me of a London I had yet to visit. Doll by Doll sounded as dangerous as they looked: ‘The Human Face’ – ‘A watched clock never moves, they said, so he never watched the clock. The only time he saw the hands, they were rushing like a torrent round a rock’ describes the song’s own trajectory, one minute soft, slow, tender, the next out of control, gathering momentum, an essay in intensity. It fit with my college life, ‘Angst, angst and more angst’ as a friend put it at the time. We were all so post-Joy Division (in fact, let's face it, post-'Blue Monday') although yet to experience any actual pain or sorrow. At the time, I wrote a poem that included the line ‘I'm in love with Jackie Leven’s voice’. I still am.

Then, when I was working in London, just as Jackie resurfaced, I had the privilege of seeing the phenomenon that was Leven live (almost invariably in shorts, him not me), many times, dragging friends and colleagues with me, to the Borderline, to the 12 Bar. All were impressed. I didn’t know at the time that some of the songs that I requested from Doll by Doll days, were, since the mugging, out of his new vocal range, ‘Main Travelled Roads’, ‘The Fountain Is Red’, etc. The studio albums are amazing but I will always treasure my memories of the gigs, which are where Jackie really shone – his magnificent, awe-inspiring voice, every emotion amplified, invested with an unbelievable vehemence, his skill as a raconteur and those incredibly funny stories. Though solo, you always felt that there was more than one person on stage, given Jackie’s skill on the guitar, – why just use the strings when you have a whole guitar? He was invariably entertaining, enthralling, entrancing. In a way, he was suited to these venues, because a Jackie gig was always a special and an intimate experience, where he would converse and interact with the crowd.

I hate to talk of Jackie in the past tense. He meant a lot to me. I did a fair amount of evangelising on behalf of him and his music. Part of me did relish the fact that he was little known but a bigger part wanted to share him with everyone.

I had some contact with him, mainly by fax (I was at work and too in awe to ring him up), persuading him to let Grant Hart play the CORE benefit show, then persuading Grant Hart to play the benefit (he was on a budget and was only paid £25 for expenses, while remarking to me that in 1987 he was paid $25,000 for one show although it was to be divided with the other members of Husker Du). Also convinced Jackie to play a gig for Bromley Acoustic Music Club, of which I wasn’t even a member, but it meant I got to see another Jackie gig. And so, my brief but exciting career as a music promoter, ended. I had a real job but this was so much more fun. I still dabble occasionally although some might call it interfering.

Although it’s lovely to read so many glowing tributes in the papers, it’s a shame they never devoted this many column inches to him while he was hale and hearty and at the height of his powers.

So, we’ve got the music and we’ve got the memories. And both are glorious. At the moment, of course, the sadness is overwhelming. Much has been written about the fact that Jackie never received the acclaim he deserved. It seemed that he would ever be on the cusp of making it but be destined to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, talked up one minute and forgotten the next but I think we should all concentrate on the dedication and loyalty of the fans that he has got, evident in the posts on Yahoo and Facebook. Maybe he was just too great to be appreciated by the hordes. There are a lot of undiscerning people out there. With Jackie, you either get it or you don’t and once you do, you’re hooked. He reels you in with those haunting melodies, the poetry of his lyrics and the breadth of their reach, his heart and soul, the power and the majesty of his voice and his extraordinary gift for telling stories, either spoken or sung. He was never less than captivating.

That voice – instantly recognisable, unique – I would know it anywhere. Unparalleled. Flawless. There are no words to describe it so I’ll give up right now. It will echo forever in our minds and hearts.

We did love you, Jackie and we always will. As Jackie says at the end of this live version of ‘Exit Wound’– God bless us all. We’ll see you somewhere else.

[I’m sure Jackie would have been amused by the obituary that eulogises Doll by Doll’s Gypsy Heart. Mmm. Like that famous Bruce Springsteen album, The Stream. How can you ever have listened to the track and not know it’s Gypsy Blood, especially as in inimitable Jackie fashion, the word ‘blood’ is extended to seventeen syllables in each chorus? As I wrote in my comment: 'Shades of Marge, the New York plugger, anyone?']

Here’s a review I wrote in 1994

Jackie Leven / The Borderline 29 July 1994
Jackie still has a voice that quietens crowds in seconds – massive, majestic, effortlessly soaring – he's a one-man choir, whether playing to a packed house at the Borderline where tonight we could sample his own whisky, Leven's Lament (bemused businessmen from the restaurant above are totally won over, by Jackie, not the whisky) or, barefoot and relaxed, to a few people sitting politely at tables in a church crypt in Clerkenwell where alcohol and cigarettes are prohibited.

The songs range from hard, rocky numbers like ‘Cabin Fever’* and a frenetic version of ‘Sacred Bond’ to the melancholy triumph of ‘Snow in Central Park’ and my particular favourite, ‘Call Mother’. "Call mother a lonely field." What does it mean? Somehow when he sings, it all makes sense. I hope you’re right, Jackie.**

Call it what you will - Celtic rock, folk, whatever, Jackie and the band give it their all. Tone, thanks for telling me about Doll by Doll all those years ago.

* Can't find this song anywhere. Have I got the title wrong?

** ‘Everybody gets the chance to fall in love again’ (‘Natural’)


Other Leven blogs can be found at The King of Love Has Died,  Exit Wound and I Never Saw the Movie and Jackie Leven and Adventures in Levenland.

I mention Jackie in my first blog about modern music. Also see bashful's blog.

Dave Davies Satsang Weekend Setlist September 2011

Ok, here’s the setlist from the Satsang Weekend, copied from the band’s one but might not be in order. It was all pretty amazing.

All Day and All of the Night
Where Have All the Good Times Gone
Set Me Free
Tired of Waiting for You
The Lie
See My Friends
Creeping Jean
Rock Siva
Death of a Clown
Too Much on My Mind
Are You Ready, Girl?
Fortis Green
Flowers in the Rain
Remember the Future
Strangers
Love Me Till the Sun Shines
Rock Me, Rock You
I’m Not Like Everybody Else
Living on a Thin Line
This Man He Weeps Tonight
You Really Got Me
Get Back in the Line

Next night
More or less the same but with
Hare Krishna
One Day at a Time
A snatch of Last of the Steam-Powered Trains
Party Line
Sea of Heartbreak

The band, apart from the drummer, Frank Rawle, who came from Barnstaple, had travelled from LA and were Jonathan Lea (rhythm guitar - he can also be seen in the version of The Lie from the World Trade Center, linked above, amusing to watch Dave try to control his lyric folder, luckily there was no breeze to contend with on the weekend), David Nolte (bass), Kristi Callan (backing vocals). They were a great support to Dave and all worked really well together.

Question: Why is the song called Rock Me, Rock You when Dave always sings ‘Rock You, Rock Me’? He introduces this 2003 live version as Rock You, Rock Me. Beautifully tender.

Corrections: Do let me know if you were there and remember the setlist differently.

My next blog will be about the great Jackie Leven. I can't believe he's gone.

Dave Davies Breaks My Heart (Again): Satsang 1

So we did it. Went on the Satsang Weekend. It took a huge leap of faith. Like the jump that Robert Redford and Paul Newman make in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Well maybe not as risky as that. It was billed as the opportunity of a lifetime but I’m the sort of person who, when opportunity knocks at the door, crouches down behind the sofa until it goes away again. At one point during the preliminaries, I thought I was joining the FBI or something; the payment method that my bank told me was unsafe and would cost me £30 (luckily the bank proposed an alternative that worked), the security, the ID laminates, the whole clandestine nature of the affair seemed so outlandish but in a way, this somehow only served to make the prospect more intriguing. It was all so Secret Squirrel. Although I did wonder what might be coming next: Fingerprints? Retinal scans? The absolute secrecy, need-to-knowness was possibly a little excessive considering that, if I’d told my friends that I was going to a satsang weekend at Dave Davies’s house, they wouldn’t have said, ‘Oh my God, you know where Dave Davies lives?’, they would have asked ‘Who’s Dave Davies?’ and possibly, ‘What’s satsang?’ I did wonder what sort of people had been invited to Dave and Kate’s before that they felt the need to make us sign a declaration that we would abide by a daunting list of ‘terms and conditions’ and just as it was nerve-wracking for us to put our trust in people we had never met, I kept thinking it can't be easy to invite all these strangers, possibly stalkers, to your house so it was probably even more nerve-wracking for them. Still, it was a little ironic given Dave’s rep as a rule-breaker. When I told my friends I didn’t know where I was going and wasn’t allowed to know, they were sure I would be inducted into a cult and they would have to break me out and then spend a long time deprogramming me. Still, I’d never been in a cult before so was willing to take my chances. After all, you only live once. My worry was that it all seemed like it might be a bit ‘Abandon cynicism, all ye who enter here’, which is a hard thing for me to do. With the added pressure of breathing and meditation, two things I don’t excel at.

So what was it like? Although it wasn’t exactly what we were promised or what we expected, because of Dave, who and how he is, it was so much more. He didn’t only open his house to us; he opened his heart and soul. He’s a sweetheart; totally unguarded, so open that he releases some conduit of emotion in me so that I spend much of the weekend in tears. This is partly because of bad news that I had before I went away but it’s something more. Dave really touches me and affects me somehow so that I feel what he’s feeling, so that each time he cries or his voice breaks, I’m already in tears but I can't know what he’s thinking about. It’s very strange. At one point he talks about being in love – I think he must imagine I’m in the middle of or at the end of a tragic love affair because I keep bursting into tears. I feel there’s some emotional connection, elemental and beyond words, and maybe only momentary. But Dave   probably has this effect on many people and has learnt to go with it.

I’ve never cried so much or been hugged so much in my whole life although my life has not been high on the hugs front anyway. It’s cathartic. The other members of the group are really supportive and kind and I hope that many of us will keep in touch. There is healing from the professionals Dave has enlisted but it’s therapeutic just to be in the group, to accept its and Dave’s kindness.

It’s interesting to hear some of Dave’s ideas, reassuringly eclectic, especially for someone like me, a Brideshead Revisited type of Catholic, more interested in the superstitious, personality-based side of religion, whose own brand of beliefs is a bit like a Woolworth’s pick and mix, with bits of everything all jumbled up, there’s nothing like variety, my ultimate faith lying in St Anthony, and Dave’s credo, which is based on love, should be our ideal although some things are a little harder to accept (like dolphins coming from another planet). Having recently had what faith I had shaken by an event that belies any concept of karma (and not for the first time), it was surprisingly moving to be with people who still believed in something, who could conceive that their positive energy could affect the universe, that we could pool our spiritual resources and make a difference. Dave is very anti intermediaries (priests and so on) but he can be my intermediary any day. Dave notwithstanding though, a couple of days after the weekend, I hedged my bets and bought medals of the saints from Buckfast Abbey and celebrated the Equinox at some stone rows on Dartmoor with a Druidess.

Don’t get me wrong I’m not quite ready to canonize Dave yet because I just read an interview with Ray where the interviewer was ‘kind’ enough to point out all the cruel things that Dave had recently said about him. Ray said that he wouldn’t read the article because it would only upset him. It reminds me of my sister and I. I once said that she has empathy for every living creature except me. I know circumspection’s not in your nature but have a heart, babe. He may be all those things but if you prick him, doth he not bleed?

And am I the only one who was a bit disappointed that the talking stick never said anything?

But, let’s be honest here. I didn’t even know what satsang was so I’m not really here for that even though it was intriguing and I found it really affected me. (Or was it just Dave?) Primarily, I’m here for the music.

The gigs in the evening are amazing and the band are great. More than intimate – we’re practically standing on top of them. Dave might forget the words or even the chords occasionally but the emotion and the passion and the humour shine through any minor restarts. He really gives of himself when he performs. He might have managed to get through ‘Flowers in the Rain’ the second night without crying but I didn’t and L* knew I wouldn’t. It gets me every time. I don't think about myself – it’s imagining what he’s feeling that upsets me so much. Empathy. Kurt Cobain was right about that. Still, Dave manages to slip easily between joking and intensity.

But we danced, we sang along, we had a blast. As a relatively new fan, it was the first time I had heard ‘Are You Ready, Girl?’, ‘Rock You , Rock Me’, ‘The Lie’ and ‘Get Back in the Line’. Wow. How lucky am I?

It was incredibly uplifting to hear Dave sing ‘I’m Not Like Everybody Else’, a pivotal track for me and a major factor in the reasons for me being here at all, and have everyone sing along. I could forget my disappointment in karma and experience unadulterated joy. And he danced with me! Well, sort of.

So many things that I wish I’d asked or said, like ‘Dave. Did you ever know all the words to ‘Village Green Preservation Society'?’

And maybe next time I’ll get up the courage to request some songs. I was dying to hear ‘Run’, ‘Mindless Child of Motherhood’, ‘Lost in Your Arms’, ‘Love Gets You’, but angsted too long over whether there was some particular reason he didn’t play them any more.

Despite everything, the expense and the extreme secrecy, I ask a friend if she’d do it again and she says ‘In a heartbeat’ and I would too. Of course it’s Dave that does it; he still has it, whatever it is. He really touches me. Ok, he looks older but he has that indefinable something; you can see and hear the sixteen-year-old he was in him still, that love of life. Great to see him so well recovered from his stroke. If he toured, wouldn’t we all go? Looking forward to hearing the new album.

Dave, Don’t Stop Breaking My Heart.