Cult heroes: Jackie Leven found musical beauty in his wounds

Tribute for his (almost) 65th birthday in the Guardian series on cult musicians. Graeme Thomson recalls Leven's concert at the Cabaret Voltaire in Edinburgh on 11 August 2011, which turned out to be a farewell; three months later Leven died of pancreatic cancer. Relatively well known in Germany and Norway, under the radar in Britain, but with high-calibre admirers: David Thomas, Johnny Dowd, Ron Sexsmith, Ian Rankin (two Rebus titles taken from Leven songs) and Mike Scott, who gave Thomson a statement of his own. Thomson characterises the songs as poetry of unfulfilled lives with moments of transcendence and recommends “Poor Toun” and “Universal Blue” (live version from The Haunted Year: Winter), as well as the Sir Vincent Lone version of Judee Sill's “When the Bridegroom Comes”. Biography: father London-Irish, mother from north-east England, school in Kirkcaldy like Gordon Brown, Roma heritage; left home at 16, by the early 1970s had left two marriages behind him. Doll by Doll (with Joe Shaw and Dave MacIntosh) in the squat in Maida Vale, contract with Automatic (Warner), thrown off a Hawkwind tour, drug excesses. After the split in 1983 a contract with Virgin, assault on the way home from a session, never regained his falsetto, heroin, recovery, CORE Trust. Return to music in 1992, around 30 releases in two decades. Thomson's stage memories and Rankin's perception of “pent-up energy”.