ALBUM REVIEWS
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ALBUM REVIEWS |
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Jackie Leven
THE HAUNTED YEAR: SPRING: MAN BLEEDS IN GLASGOW and GREETINGS FROM MILFORD COOKING VINYL 27.4.09 @www.vanguard-online.co.uk
When Jackie Leven recorded the first of these discs he had only five solo albums under his belt. With three times that now, in studio work and a stack of self-released bootlegs, these two live discs act as a retrospective, a live “best of”. And the best is very good. I love hearing his songs without studio production – the signature live sound is a big acoustic guitar, miked up so you can hear him tap finger rolls on it and the tapping of his foot, acting as metronome. Here he doesn’t really need it, accompanied by a band on each occasion but listen hard and you’ll pick it out. This is the second release in a series of four double albums harvested from fan-club releases. Two concerts, the first from 1998 and really well mixed by Jay Burnett, features Michael Cosgrave, a performer on the circuit himself, on keyboards and Steafan Hannigan on pipes and drums. It’s a slab of concert with the bum notes and bits of chat, including some yarns that you might listen to less often than the rest but that’s what the buttons are for on your remote..… and they’re much shorter than normal. And you might want to know why Scottish second division football results turn Jackie’s girlfriend on.…. It’s an excellent concert and the band adds colour without distracting from the essential melancholy at the heart of this work. It features a tune that I don’t remember getting released officially, the title track, which gets a sensitive outing. Some classics get aired – Snow In Central Park, Farm Boy, Call Mother A Lonely Field and Poortoun and the latter part of the gig is hypnotic. The second set, drawn from a 2001 fan club Christmas do, is a real change, being made up mostly of covers. The big treat for fans is his cover of Main Travelled Roads – the nearest his old band, Doll By Doll, ever got to a hit single. A re-working of a traditional tune, The Bonnie Earl Of Moray, it seems to sum up the dramatic sadness the best of his work walks through. He adds his distinctive vocals to Dylan’s She Belongs To Me and it is strange to hear someone else’s (Kevin Hewick) guitar take the lead. Most of the songs pass without substantial reworking – just a voice I like singing songs I like. Pale Blue Eyes and Waiting For My Man represent the heroin chic ala Lou Reed. His own songs, like Walking In Argyll, stand up well in the distinguished company and Listening To Crows Pray is beautifully sung. This is just the songs, with the normal chat and yarns of a gig snipped out for a smoother listen. There’s extensive sleeve notes but, instead of being the usual self-indulgent wafflings about the historic value of these recordings and the technical details of the remastering, involving all sorts of heroic work on deteriorating magnetic tape, this is self-indulgent ramblings about Jackie’s life by the man himself. It’s a sample of his monthly column on his website (link below) and this tale is a typical combination of violence, drink, strange mates and travel and will whet your appetite for more. This would make a fine jumping on point for the curious but impecunious listener. www.jackieleven.co.uk |
