Jackie Leven – Doll By Doll – Outsider e grande classe

Two-part portrait in the Italian web magazine Distorsioni, a good two years after Leven's death. Part 1 (Jackie Leven) tells the career: “Control” in 1973 as John St. Field on the Spanish label Movieplay, founding of Doll by Doll in 1975, four LPs 1977–1983, at the end of 1983 a street assault with an attempt at strangling and over two years without the ability to speak or sing, heroin addiction, the band Concrete Bulletproof Invisible with Glen Matlock (single “Big Tears”, good review in Melody Maker), a collaboration with John Foxx, in the early nineties overcoming the addiction with the help of his wife Carol through acupuncture and holistic therapy, then the return in 1994 with “Songs from the Argyll Cycle” and the Cooking Vinyl album “The Mystery of Love…”. Highlighted are, among others, “Fairytales for Hard Men”, “Creatures of Light and Darkness”, the Haunted Year series and “Wayside Shrines…”, collaborations with Michael Cosgrave and Ian Rankin, the pseudonym Sir Vincent Lone and support slots for Willie Nile and Lloyd Cole. Sfondrini compares Leven's vocal range with Demetrio Stratos (Area).

Part 2 (Doll by Doll) describes the band as neither commercial nor compatible with punk, discusses “Remember”, “Gypsy Blood”, “Doll by Doll” (MCA, released late) and “Grand Passion” (Magnet, with Helen Turner, Mel Collins and David Gilmour; Turner is judged disparagingly) and mentions the live CD “Revenge Of Memory” (Sheffield Limits Club 1977, released 2006). Tenor: appeal for rediscovery, Leven as an “outsider” of great class.