Jackie Leven

Standalone, unsigned Herald obituary (headline “Musician; Born: June 18, 1950; Died: November 14, 2011”), separate from the news report of the same day. It calls Leven one of Scotland's most underrated songwriters and a soulful singer and guitarist. Background according to the text: father Irish-Cockney, mother from north-east England, Roma roots that made him an outsider in the Fife of the 1950s and 60s; Leven tells (as a quotation) of the night in the allotment when he hid from a gang. He was already on the road married at 17, having previously been thrown out of Kirkcaldy High School for drugs, where he was in the same year as Gordon Brown. Then come Berlin, Madrid and Control as John St Field (on a Spanish label), the founding of Doll by Doll in London in 1975, being thrown off tours with Devo and Hawkwind, a solo contract with Virgin in 1984, the mugging on the way home from the studio, two years without a voice, heroin and the cure through acupuncture, CORE Trust with Princess Diana as patron. After that a fresh start with his family, Cooking Vinyl, the 1994 comeback, over 20 albums in 17 years, collaborations with David Thomas, Johnny Dowd and Ian Rankin (Usher Hall 2005). Leven was a crowd-puller in Europe, especially in Germany, and remained a cult figure in Britain. Stage anecdotes (losing his girlfriend to the Dalai Lama's bodyguard, Bay City Rollers badge). The text ends with the 2011 Edinburgh Fringe show, at which Leven was emaciated, and the closing line of “Main Travelled Roads”. Several formulations coincide with Graeme Thomson's Herald profile (c. 2006, reused in the theartsdesk obituary); Thomson as author is plausible but not proven.