Jackie Leven June 18th 1950 – 14th November 2011

The label's official obituary, published the day after the death. It begins with the same sentence as the obituary home page of jackieleven.co.uk (death on Monday, 14 November, “at 8 o'clock in the evening”, cancer) and the same Leven quotation about “spiritual” and “soulful” storytellers. A detailed account of his life follows: birth in Kirkcaldy, outsider childhood in Glenrothes (father “Irish Cockney”, mother from Newcastle, Romany background), essay prize and expulsion from school for drugs, marriage at 16, rocket factory, driven out by a gang at 17, wandering years (farm work, Berlin, Kerry, Madrid with Control), Doll by Doll (four albums, the last with David Gilmour, split in 1983), solo contract with Charisma/Virgin, the mugging in Market Street in Islington (strangled and injured in the throat), loss of the falsetto, several years of heroin, getting clean with five-element acupuncture and “psychic healing”, CORE Trust; from 1994 Songs From The Argyll Cycle and The Mystery Of Love…, then 24 further albums, Jackie Leven Said with Ian Rankin, Ubudoll with David Thomas, Leven's Lament (bottled by Islay Mist), annual walks, five albums in 2009 (Haunted Valley double and Sir Vincent Lone), Gothic Road and Wayside Shrines with Michael Cosgrave, which Martin Goldschmidt considers the best since The Mystery Of Love. Close: Leven's description of Wayside Shrines as a “homeopathic record”.