Visefestivalen Egersund 2009: Jackie Leven, Dalane Brygghus

Profile in the festival programme of the Visefestivalen in Egersund (section “Dalane Brygghus”). Aalbu strings together the Leven legends, expressly as hearsay (“etter sigende”): the first pupil in Scotland to be expelled from school for drug possession; Doll by Doll shortly before the breakthrough; attacked in 1984 on the way home from the studio and kicked in the larynx; a doctor is said to have prescribed him anabolic steroids, which led him to heroin and into deep depression; exit with a method he developed himself, including Chinese acupuncture, founding of a detox clinic and of The Core Trust; his girlfriend ran off with the Dalai Lama's bodyguard. In 1994 the comeback with The Mystery of Love… (with Mike Scott and Robert Bly), plus his own whisky “Leven’s Lament”, which Salman Rushdie is said to have recommended in the booklet. As highlights of the discography he apparently names Fairy Tales for Hard Men, Creatures of Light and Darkness and Shining Brother Shining Sister (titles garbled in the OCR). Live spartan with acoustic guitar, on record opulent and Celtic-masculine.