Doll by Doll/J. Leven

**rickbass** · #1 01-10-2002, 09:27 PM

I guess this will favor input from TB'ers in the UK.

Doll by Doll and Jackie Leven were great, IMO. I'd like one of my bands to do some of their material. But they barely got any play in the US. Some other musicians are like "Doll who?" when I mention them. I heard they broke big in England for a while.

Does anyone know;

- what Leven or the band is doing now?

- why they never became "the next big thing" they were expected to be?

- if their recordings are still on the maket (I came up snake eyes looking at CDNow.com)

Thanks for any info., especially from anyone who saw them live!

Bruce Lindfield · #2 01-11-2002, 03:30 AM

I actually got to talk to Jackie Leven a couple of months ago - he lives in my town now and he was doing a gig locally. My girflriend is a big fan of Doll by Doll and dragged me along and I was very glad I went.

It seems he is doing mostly solo gigs now with an acoustic guitar. I was very impressed with his guitar playing and the songs were great; but the real surprise was his story-telling and banter between songs. It was almost like a combination of a stand-up comic with a musical gig - he had some hilarious stories and his broad Scottish accent contributed to him getting a great rapport with the audience - it's almost as fun to hear him talk about his life as it is to hear the songs.

Anyway - after the gig we went up and talked to him for a while - my girlfriend really wanted to - and he seemed like really nice guy - we bought a CD and he signed it for us. I have since noticed in listings mags that he does play a lot of these intimate acoustic gigs.

The album we bought was a 2000 release with David Thomas (yes that one!) called "Defending Ancient Springs". It seems that he is very much into a solo career now.

Since writing the above I found a website that explains everything :

http://www.jackieleven.com/

**rickbass** · #3 01-11-2002, 08:59 AM

Thanks, Bruce. WOW! He lives right there in Brighton and plays locally! Lucky you!

I'm glad he is still performing (I wish all of D. by. D. still was).

IMO, Leven and the band were most deserving of "making it big "........then again, maybe the quality of their music was too high for mass consumption......yeah, we need another Creed-clone in the US