Jackie Leven and the Small World Orchestra open the Union Scene (caption “LITEN VERDEN

Drammens Tidende announces Jackie Leven's appearance at the opening of the new cultural centre Union Scene on Saturday (24 September 2005). Dagbladet dubbed him “Scotland's answer to Van Morrison” a couple of years ago. With percussionist Eivind Kløverød from Vestfossen, a Greek violinist and an English keyboardist and trumpeter, Leven says he is more excited than he has been since touring with Doll by Doll in the late 1970s. It is a fantastic feeling to inaugurate a cultural centre like Union Scene; he last played there at the Working Class Hero festival.

The idea for the Small World Orchestra, Leven says, was born in Drammen. On his earlier visit he was playing a song about a train journey from Drammen to Bergen, his first in Norway, when Kløverød “cheekily and boldly” walked on stage, sat down beside him and began to play. “First I thought: ‘Who the f… is this bastard?!’ Then Eivind started to play. He was so good that I fell head over heels in love.” None of the orchestra has played together before and there is only one morning to rehearse, but with such musicians he is not in the least afraid; it is only the band's second concert, in Drammen, where the idea was conceived.

The article points to the new album Elegy for Johnny Cash, which strengthens Leven's position in Germany – he tours there in November with Kløverød and the orchestra – and might bring the final breakthrough in Norway. Leven says he did not foresee the Cash feeling; it arrived after he was enchanted by Cash's video for “Hurt”. He had not liked Cash much before, but in his last recordings found a feeling that helped him come to terms with his own father's death. He then began collecting pictures as if from Cash's life, which became the song “Elegy for Johnny Cash”. As background the article says Leven led a distinctive, charismatic rock band until the mid-1980s, when he was attacked without provocation in London and believed he would never sing again; ten years later Princess Diana removed his doubts by demanding that he sing for her – and in Drammen he now appears with his first band in twenty years.