Leon's Lively Licks

The variety afforded to us by music’s rich tapestry is a beautiful thing. For every naff boy band cover version, there’s a new Cradle of Filth single. Each time Lily Allen falls conveniently out of The Groucho club on the eve of her new song hitting the shops, some group of upstarts has just put the finishing touches to an album they genuinely believe is the best thing ever written, and occasionally they’re right.

Without this musical merry-go-round, there’d be nothing for me to write about, and nothing for any of us to think about. But aside from all this, there’s one thing which really gets us musos excited. Every once in a while, artists arrive who can’t be pigeon holed as naff, or upstarts, or Lily-alikes, or anything else for that matter. They defy straight forward description. And Leon Jean Marie fits that category.

Emerging from London’s East End, Leon was a musician from the start, until a row with his parents left him homeless and broke. A year with no fixed abode was not a musically fruitful one, but it provided the impetus to make a success of the raw talent he possessed, and with a little help from then almost unknown producer Mark Ronson, he was able to create a genuinely interesting sound.

There are elements of funk, soul, rock, and electronica here, and Leon would be proud that those influences shine through in his debut offering. Opening track Fair is a riot, and sets the tone for a lively, good time record.

This is miles from being the finished article - Leon Jean Marie may not reach household name status just yet. Bed Of Nails is something of a mess, and Trusted has no place in an otherwise eclectic mix of well penned numbers. But in all, this is a solid debut, and we can expect to hear much more from this genuinely talented, raw British songwriter.