Seated show

Scottish songwriter and folk musician Jackie Leven first burst onto the music scene in the late sixties when he went by the pseudonym John St Field. Under John St Field he released one full-length album in 1971 titled ‘Control’.

In 1978 Leven formed the band Doll By Doll, who despite having a unique and powerful live act, never quite broke through to the mainstream. The band released a total of four albums between the years of 1979 and 1982. Their sound blended LSD psychedelic visions, folk, Celtic, blues and punk to form a very distinctive, individual sound, often exploring the darker side of human nature.

After Doll By Doll disbanded in 1983 Leven embarked on his solo career. Tragically, after a vicious and unprovoked attack in the street in 1984, Leven was very nearly strangled to death and as a result was left unable to speak for nearly two years. During this time he became addicted to heroin, though he eventually cured himself of his addiction via a combination of acupuncture and psychic healing, which eventually led to him forming the CORE trust; an organisation which favours a holistic approach to the treatment of heroin addiction.

1994 saw the release of his debut solo album titled ‘The Mystery of Love is Greater than the Mystery of Death’ which was extremely well received. Since the release of his debut, Leven has released a further fifteen full-length studio albums plus a handful of exclusive fan club only releases. He also released a joint album with crime writer Ian Rankin, titled ‘Jackie Leven Said’. He released ‘Lovers At The Gun Club’ on Cooking Vinyl Records in 2008.

‘Some years ago I noticed that I was writing a lot more songs than I was ever going to record and get released, especially in these times where you can only release one studio album every eighteen months. As I am a writer of genius, this began to worry me more and more. So I went to see my Cooking Vinyl boss, Martin Goldschmidt, to ask him if I could make more records. He said no. I said to him ‘look, The Beatles once released four albums in one year, and nobody said to them, hey that’s too many records in one year’. Martin said ‘Jackie, this is not 1967 and you are not The Beatles’. We talked some more and we agreed that I could make records under a different name - that name is Sir Vincent Lone’.

Leven’s most recent releases for 2009 have been his seasonally titled and released The Haunted Year albums.

We look forward to welcoming Jackie back to Manchester Academy 3 on Sunday 6th June.