Review: The Wanderer: A Tribute to Jackie Leven

Detailed track-by-track review of the tribute album by a self-declared fan who saw Leven live several times. By way of introduction the author sketches Leven's biography (Doll by Doll, the attack, heroin, CORE Trust; half the proceeds to the Westminster Drug Project) and his output, which Martin Goldschmidt at Cooking Vinyl is said to have supported against commercial good sense; he assigns the alter ego Sir Vincent Lone to the Glitterhouse label and Chip Pan Fire to the pseudonym Jackie Balfour. He describes Leven's solo performances (guitar technique, microphoned foot-stomping, stories between the songs).

On the project: Michael Weston King, whose album A Decent Man (2003) Leven produced and whose live band he is said to have led, always praised Leven and played Leven tribute nights of his own. The two CDs are titled “Gentle Man” and “Hard Man”. The author praises Disc 1 almost throughout (Eliza Carthy's Brecht/Weill-like The Garden, Jeb Loy Nichols, James Yorkston, Lou Dalgleish, Ian Rankin's spoken Edinburgh Winter Blues with Dean Owens, which sounds eerily like Leven, Deborah Greenwood's Universal Blue). Disc 2 is said to be more uneven; highlights are Dog House Roses (Elegy for Johnny Cash), Johnny Dowd's Farm Boy and Michael Cosgrave's own composition The View from Shit Creek; he is less convinced by Tom Robinson, Rab Noakes, Levi Henriksen's Just Like Jackie Leven and Liam Carson's spoken I Weep. Verdict: largely very good, a little too long; the booklet contains reminiscences from almost everyone involved.