Jackie Leven – an obituary by Kevin Hewick (Jackie Leven 1950 – 2011 an appreciation from fellow singer/songwriter Kevin Hewick)

Tribute by the Leicester singer-songwriter Kevin Hewick, who as a teenager saw over 50 Doll by Doll concerts. He spans the arc from the folk duo Saint Judas (1969) through Doll by Doll to the solo work and stresses the timeless sharpness of the songs. He recalls at length Remember (1979), a fan community from Derby and Leicester that followed the band everywhere, Leven's Burns guitar decorated with LSD carvings (Leven's own statement to Hewick), Joe Shaw's smashed Stratocaster, the line-up with Dave McIntosh, Robin Spreafico and Tony Waite, and nights on the floor of the squat in Warwick Avenue. The comeback of the 1990s was accompanied by Mick Nolan with the information service and fanzine The Haunted Valley; at the Christmas parties in Milford (Derbyshire) Hewick and other Leicester musicians played with Leven as “The Stornoway Girls”, and in 2002 there was a one-off trio with Leven and Joe Shaw. Overall tone: deeply moved, with mockery of commercially more successful singer-songwriters.