Jackie Leven – Live Or Die (Live In Bremen)

The review (21 May 2024) begins by saying the listener gets “so much material thrown at them” that the musician, who died in November 2011, deserves a fuller introduction. The author first explains the many names: they are stage names, not fellow musicians. The Scottish songwriter “Alan Moffatt” (as the text has it) began as John St. Field, whose first work Control was recorded in 1971; other pseudonyms were Jackie Balfour and Sir Vincent Lone. In 1977 he founded the new wave band, at which, incidentally, a certain David Gilmour once guested – “perhaps that alone is reason enough” for this singer-songwriter album to appear on a prog site – and which dissolved in 1983.

His solo career, Meurer writes, began under a very bad star: during the recording of his debut he was attacked at night and nearly strangled, and for almost two years he could neither speak nor sing, which led him into drug addiction. Fortunately he got out again, and in 1994 – “eleven years later than originally planned” – came his first success with The Mystery of Love Is Greater Than the Mystery of Death. As a notable album he mentions the one with the Fife-born crime writer Ian Rankin. The box (MiG Music, 26 April 2024) consists of two concert recordings of two CDs each: Club Moments on 27 May 1999 and the Sendesaal on 29 March 2004. The first two CDs are solo performances “in the truest sense”: a man with a guitar, a very beautiful voice and a talent for being extremely entertaining.

That is part of it: the Scot tells many anecdotes, so all four CDs are loosened up with funny stories. This sometimes seems slightly irritating, because witty announcements are followed now and then by very sad-sounding songs. Individual songs such as “Men in Prison” remind the reviewer a little of later Amazing Blondel titles or of Tír na nÓg, whom MiG has also recalled. The two concerts have only one overlap (“Single Father”); at the 2004 gig he is discreetly accompanied on keyboards by Michael Cosgrave. (According to the track list “Call Mother a Lonely Field” also appears in both.) Verdict: “For the fan, but also as an introduction, a very nice compilation.” Rating 10/15 points, the second reviewer's initials (KR) giving 12.