Remembering Jackie Leven

The Dorset journalist Nick Churchill published a short obituary on the day of the death (blog post of 15.11.2011, updated 2016) and documented beneath it three interviews he had done with Leven for the Bournemouth Echo. In the obituary he recalls a performance before about 30 people in the skittle alley of his village pub in Dorset (Bere Regis), near the farm where Leven once lived.

- May 2006 (before a concert at Club Hobo, Bournemouth, 20 May, with Joe Shaw): Leven on former places of residence (Westbourne, Parkstone, Corfe Mullen), a “lifetime lack of achievement award”, the Q Awards, a major German prize with a string-quartet arrangement of “St Judas”, a planned album of songs by Judee Sill and Lightnin' Hopkins, and the Doll by Doll reissues, which hinged on Warner having lost the legal papers. - October 2008 (Lovers At The Gun Club, concert at the Opera House): Leven would like to produce Amy Winehouse; explanations of “Fareham Confidential” (drum loop from “Ruby Don't Take Your Love to Town”), of his relationship with Cooking Vinyl and of his Dorset years (farmhouse near Blandford after Control). - March 2010 (Gothic Road): Leven on a feared schoolmate, on Gordon Brown, whom he supports, the concept of the “two roads” behind the album title, Ralph McTell and the Jarrow March, the dedication to the musician Tim Mycroft from Blandford.