Christian Kane – Covered in Glory

Musician

I’m a huge fan of Christian Kane and his original songs but I also really love his interpretations of other people’s. He puts his heart and soul into anything he chooses to sing. Country music isn’t a big deal in the UK so I often hear Christian’s versions of a song before I encounter the original and discover that I don’t like it as much. Weird, because I’m usually someone who’s a stickler for the original, for instance, Judy Garland – Over the Rainbow; Frank Sinatra – Well, anything Frank did really. I don’t like the watered-down, limp versions common in the charts today – usually by fey songstresses with affected, insipid vocals, popularised by their ubiquity in adverts: Ellie Goulding’s bafflingly turgid Your Song; Lily Allen’s total crucifixion of Somewhere Only We Know; that awful, soulless Wherever You Will Go by Charlene Soraia.* Whereas these seem to drain the life and spirit out of the song, Christian Kane does the opposite. He invests them with more emotion and verve, making the originals sound just a little colourless in comparison. His voice is a gift – unique but with echoes of Elvis, reverberations of Springsteen. It has a depth and resonance that can reinvigorate an old song, making it seem contemporary and new and real. And it appears totally effortless. His original material showcases his talents even better but that's another blog.

* Of course there are exceptions – Adele’s Make You Feel My Love; the Byrds’ Tambourine Man; Timothy B. Schmit’s Caroline No; the Eagles’ Ol’ 55, Poco's Magnolia.

Apologies if any of these aren’t the originals you know. I’ve tried to put down the writer when I thought it relevant. Links are in the words ‘Original’ and ‘Kane’ if you want to hear what I’m talking about. Obviously Christian Kane has covered ‘ songs live that I haven’t included e.g. Sweet Home Alabama, either because I haven’t heard them, couldn’t find a good version of them or he hasn’t played them that often. 

Actor

Fast Car

Original: Tracy Chapman 

Unstoppable rhythm and melody, compelling narrative. I love her deep voice. It has a certain intensity and immediacy.

Kane studio; Kane live: A little hard to listen to owing to the enthusiastic fans singing along and occasionally drowning him out (he loves it). He still sounds tender and true. Plaintive and melancholy but that natural growl lets you know he’s no pushover.

You got a fast car/I want a ticket to anywhere/Maybe we can make a deal/Maybe together we can get somewhere/Any place is better/Starting from zero got nothing to lose/Maybe we'll make something/Me myself I got nothing to prove

The One I Love 

Original: David Gray

I’ve got to admit that I’m not a fan of his voice, thought he bleated like a lamb on his big hit This Year’s Love but this is better.

Kane: ‘Somebody else wrote this but it’s one of my favourite songs’. More rough tenderness, he always sounds as if he’s lived what he’s singing. Passion and restraint.

Next wave coming in/Like an ocean roar/Won't you take my hand darling/On that old dance floor/We can twist and shout/Do the turtle dove/And you're the one I love/You're the one I love

Wary and suspicious

I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man

Original: Prince 

The single is bouncy, infectious, unputdownable although I couldn't find it on YouTube.

Kane: This doesn’t completely work countrified (not sure about the fiddle) but it’s very lively and upbeat and it's plain CK identifies with the sentiment.

I asked her if she wanted to dance/And she said that/All she wanted was a good man/And wanted to know/If I thought I was qualified/And I said baby don't waste your time/I know what's on your mind/I may be qualified for a one night stand/But I could never take the place of your man

Mid-party?

Jolene

Original: Ray LaMontagne

Low-key, breathy, mournful but, combined with his very deliberate phrasing, it sounds a little affected.

Kane: ‘It had so much to do with my life – I just fell in love with it’. In Christian’s earnest, heartfelt rendition, there’s a memory of anguish, hard times and misguided youth that makes it affecting.

I found myself face down in the ditch/Booze on my hair/Blood on my lips/A picture of you, holding a picture of me/In the pocket of my blue jeans/Still don't know what love means

Drift Away

Original: Dobie Gray (written by Mentor Williams) Easy-going, laidback, likeable.

Kane: There’s palpable joy in the energy and exuberance in his version.

Thanks for the joy that you've given me/I want you to know I believe in your song/And rhythm and rhyme and harmony/You've helped me along/Makin' me strong/Oh, give me the beat, boys and free my soul/I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away

Part cowboy

Should’ve Been a Cowboy

Original: Toby Keith

I can't really fault this. Jaunty and upbeat, a country no.1 in 1993.

Kane:‘I lost country for a while. This is the one of the songs that brought me back.’  Part-cowboy, part-Cherokee, CK rocks out, breathing new life into this song.

I should've been a cowboy/I should've learned to rope and ride/Wearing my six-shooter riding my pony on a cattle drive

Luckenbach, Texas

Original: Waylon Jennings (written by Chips Moman and Bobby Emmons), a country no. 1 in 1977.Easy-listening, old-school country.

Kane: Christian reinvents this; it barrels along with enthusiasm and gruff charm and something about his tone really reminds me of Elvis.

The only two things in life/That make it worth livin'/Is guitars to tune good/And firm feelin' women

Part Cherokee

The Dance

Original: Garth Brooks (written by Tony Arata)

Sort of middle of the road, pleasant and inoffensive, Garth has a nice, even tone that’s easy to listen to.

Kane: Only a tiny clip of this. I’d kill to hear more as this is a great appetiser. There’s a depth of experience in the few lines we have here and that twang of a Texan accent on the last word kills me. Also rate Scotty McCreery’s version which, despite his youth, still has gravitas, although not the rueful quality of the Christian snippet.

And now I'm glad I didn't know/The way it all would end the way it all would go/Our lives are better left to chance I could have missed the pain/But I'd have had to miss the dance

Redneck Side of Me

Original: Jamey Johnson (written by Jerrod Niemann)

The instrumentation is wonderful (is that an organ at the beginning?) but the vocal sounds sort of creepy, like a bad uncle, someone you wouldn't want to meet on a dark night and is too much on one level, there’s not enough drama. Great accent though.

Kane: Again, only a tantalising snippet,. In a couple of minutes, he conveys a promise, a threat, gentleness. Listen to the line: ‘I never hunted 'gators in the Everglades’. The softness and timbre of his voice make my throat quiver. 

I never was a roughneck pumpin' crude down the line/An' I ain't logged no timber, sawin’ on them Georgia pines/I can't mix the best batch of etouffee/I never hunted 'gators in the Everglades

(Aside from Wikipedia: Étouffée or etouffee is a dish found in both Cajun and Creole cuisine typically served with shellfish over rice.)

'Country music has always been first and foremost in my heart'

I think my main point is that Christian Kane always sounds more than credible because he chooses songs that mean something to him. And he can sing anything. I’m mystified as to why he hasn’t had a huge hit although I know that talent doesn’t always translate into success and am probably not the best placed person to try to fathom the machinations of the country music business. But he’s personable and appealing and let’s face it, fine-looking. By rights, he should have ‘made it’ with any of his original songs, such as A Different Kind of Knight, America High, Rattlesnake Smile or with Let Me Go (written by Casey Beathard and Tom Shapiro), which he begged to be allowed to sing. Part of me thinks it’s because he has more than one string to his bow being an actor too (maybe Nashville doesn’t like the fact that he isn’t solely a musician, that he wants to have his cake and eat it too); part of me thinks it’s owing to the extreme dedication of his fanbase (to some extent drawn from fans of his acting that have got into the music) – it’s possible that this contributes to the mainstream country/rock industry’s failure to take him seriously; or perhaps he’s just refusing to play by the rules. I’ve been watching Nashville and wondering why he hasn’t got one of the major roles. Perhaps they wanted musical newcomers but he would be a shoo-in for a recurring cameo of a roughneck country rocker, perhaps on the wrong side of the law.

Could it be?

I’ll end with this exchange, which sort of sums Christian Kane’s music up.

My Dad asked me what Christian Kane's music was like. I said 'It's country rock' and he said 'Like the Eagles?' I said 'More country' and my sister added 'And more rock'.

Perhaps he’s just too much of each to be fully accepted by either (having played to rock audiences at the Viper Room). But they say this is The Year of Kane. 

He also features in another blog of mine:

http://sshh-sshh.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/opinion8-songs-about-school.html.

Another blogger’s take on CK live: http://bashfulbadgersblog.wordpress.com/2013/11/21/christian-kane-rocks-out-at-the-jazz-cafe-in-camden/.

Thanks to Wikipedia, Kane Nation, A-Z Lyrics Universe and CMT. 

Christian Kane’s music is available from: www.ChristianKane.com.

 

‘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.