Canada’s Jerry Leger is a fine example of an artist who has built his reputation here in the UK with regular touring, either solo or with his band The Situation. Tonight was the fourth time your reviewer had caught the man live in as many years and it’s fair to say that each gig has had a singular touch with new songs added and some older ones resurrected, a moveable feast you could say.
Tonight Leger was on his lonesome, just him, his guitar and harmonica, much as he is portrayed in his latest release, ‘Lucky Streak – Latent Lounge, Live From The Hangar’. That album is a collection of songs plucked from Leger’s catalogue and several of them were on display tonight. He opened with ‘Nothing Pressing’, a sublime song which harks back to Greenwich Village troubadourism, a time and place that Leger surely reinforces on his album covers and personal trappings. A lesser songwriter might be considered presumptuous to adopt such a persona but Leger has the talent to carry it off with some style, even able to conjure memories of Leonard Cohen on his deeply moving rendition of ‘I Was Right To Doubt Her’, his second song of the night.
The gig was in a bowling club’s social hall, not a very rock’n’roll venue to be sure but Leger seemed to be pleased with the set up, remarking after his opening song that the long and elevated room had some great reverb, a plus factor for him as he went on to relate a tale of Sun Records’ owner Sam Phillips’ use of reverb on the early Elvis records. Like Dylan, Leger has several sides to him and one of them is his love of early rock’n’roll, hard to convey in an acoustic gig perhaps but his album ‘Donlands‘ (excellently played with his band on his last trip over here) is a homage to Brill Building pop writers. No surprise then that he dedicated a song to the Everlys at one point and took time to talk about the genesis of a couple of songs from ‘Donlands’. ‘I Need Love’, he informed us, is his mother’s favourite of her son’s songs while ‘Three Hours Ahead Of Midnight’ with its mention of cuddly toys and Leger’s romantic yearnings did hark back, quite splendidly, to more innocent times. He also related a lengthy tale which began with his memories of watching Midnight Special on TV and seeing Danny & The Juniors sing their hit ‘At The Hop’ before going on to talk of lead singer Danny Rapp’s sad demise, summarised then in Leger’s song ‘At The Jigsaw’.
Hank Williams featured in a couple of the songs tonight. Leger has released a 10” album of Williams’ covers (not played at 78rpm he reassured the audience) and he proceeded to sing ‘Setting The Woods On Fire’ (written by Fred and Wesley Rose) and ‘There’ll Be No Teardrops Tonight’. Neither of these appear on the album but it has to be said that Leger inhabits Williams’ mantle with ease, investigating the dark shadows within the songs.
There was a rousing rendition of ‘Baby’s Got A Rare Gun’ with Leger sounding like a young and angry Dylan and he closed the set with one of his, if not best, at least one of his most pertinent songs, ‘Factory Made’ which had the audience transfixed. A grand close to a gig which reminds one that Leger is truly a talent to watch.
