Jackie Leven – the unsung Fife genius of Scottish music

Feature by the Scottish music journalist David Pollock on the compilation Straight Outta Caledonia. Deborah Greenwood, Leven's partner for the last 15 years, describes how much his origins mattered to him: he always had himself announced as “Jackie Leven from the Kingdom of Fife” and opened concerts with a joke about the wind in Fife. Michael Kasparis (Night School Records, Apostille) says Molly Nilsson played him Leven on a car journey to Manchester; “The Sexual Loneliness of Jesus Christ” was a revelation to him, the compilation is a personal selection from around 35 albums, and the title is a nod to NWA. A short biography follows (Control 1971, Doll by Doll, Gilmour recordings discovered later, Concrete Bulletproof Invisible with Glen Matlock). Greenwood relates that a school librarian led the boy, who was often banished to the library, to the Russian poets; his imagery (sky, reservoirs, hills) and characters such as “Jim o' Windygates” came from Fife. Kasparis compares Leven's devotion with soul (Otis Redding) and his kinship with Big Country, the Waterboys and Bert Jansch.