ALBUM REVIEWS
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ALBUM REVIEWS |
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Jackie Leven
THE HAUNTED YEAR: WINTER: MEN IN PRISON & MUNICH BLUES COOKING VINYL 16.2.09 @www.vanguard-online.co.uk
I keep saying it’s time Jackie Leven released a live ‘Best Of’ but, as he has explained, if he does that, he doesn’t get to release any new music for another year or so. Somehow he has persuaded his label to let him put out a series of retrospectives and that’ll serve. You see, production often dates a studio album and every album has songs that reveal their strengths or flaws later on, in performance. Here we get the songs that have endured, in simple arrangements that show off Jackie’s remarkable guitar expressions and rich voice. There used to be a fan club, called The Haunted Valley (named after a lyric, of course), that had an annual CD, usually cribbed from a live show or shows. It fizzled out, not for want of demand, but mostly disorganisation and lack of time. This double CD is two of those releases and will be followed by 3 more sets. One of the discs is improved - I remember the original was only one single track for an hour, making song-hopping rather hard. On the other hand, some were fetching respectable amounts as rarities on Ebay and this release will knack the prices hoarders might have fetched……. First of the pair is a show from 2000 that was recorded and broadcast by a German radio station. Unusually, it features keyboards and trumpet backing from Michael Cosgrove as well as partner Deborah Greenwood on vocals on a couple of songs- her voice sets Jackie’s off well, while the keys add a lush warmth. He has an appreciative audience here for his jokes and tales between songs and hushed meditation for the strong song selection. Looking For Love is an old favourite and Universal Blue is lovely. It makes a Yorkshire forest park above Otley into a mystic tumulus. He romanticises and beautifies images into wider reaching images, as in the next song, Single Father. A yarn about Germans calling him while he’s on the loo precedes a cover of You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling. Jackie’s playing is percussive and expressive, accompanied by his constantly tapping foot acting as metronome. Jackie describes this show in the sleeve notes as good, not great and his honesty does him credit – I’d play this to a neophyte over a studio album any day. Next up is a solo show in a prison in Norway on an afternoon. A slightly nervous Jackie tries to justify himself to his captive audience before settling for winning them over with solid playing and succeeding in the end. Johnny Cash At St Quentin, it ain’t. After the title track, lifted from an early solo album, the opening of the concert proper is a show of guitar mastery with the trademark fingertap rolls on the guitar body. His opening remarks are about his drug use, prison time and how two years with a damaged voice box led to heroin addiction. The song selection is as solid as the other disc with songs like Pourtoun and Call Mother A Lonely Field, recalling the way expatriate hearts of Celts abroad turn to home and hearth. Classic Northern Diversions takes us to working men with lost lives, drinking their time away in post-industrial cities like Leeds. His rich voice and Celtic melancholy knock the wimpy modern-hippy/folk pretensions of the current crop of singer-songwriters into the gutter. The set has quality sleevenotes, giving context to the recordings and the mood of the day. There is an essay / rambling wander from Jackie about moments from his touring (he spends up to a hundred nights a year on the road) and there are more of the same available on his website. Both these discs are highlights of each gig, choosing to squeeze on just the best bits, and best bits they are. More Jackie Leven on Vanguard Online: Live Review www.jackieleven.co.uk |
