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Product Description
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The album’s orchestral splendour sits alongside earthy rock and roll with songs that are by turns intimate and soaring. Richard Hawley insists his mind is full only with "confused thoughts and Guinness". But when he sings, he does so in a voice that’s deep and low, and does not lie. His merciful, wise songs tell of the heart’s truths as seen in the dark, revealed by moonlight.
The title track, a string-led, alone-in-a-crowd song, sees Hawley’s narrator walk the city at night and name checks an old meeting place for Sheffield, Coles Corner, on the site where John Lewis now stands. Says Hawley "Sheffield’s couples, lovers, friends, mums and dads or whatever, would meet [there]. I’ve always found it quite a romantic notion – how many kids in Sheffield are knocking about as a result of a meeting at Coles Corner?’ ‘I’ll meet you at Coles Corner…’ People still say it, even though it hasn’t existed for years. It only exists, really, in the ether."
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Customer Reviews
So I bought the album.
The morning it dropped on my doormat, I fired up the system, placed it in the CD tray, pressed play and sat back.
The world changed...into Technicolour. The strings that swelled from the speakers could have come from a big old Wurlitzer jukebox from the Fifties. I could have been sitting in an old boozer sipping brown ale in the days before lager was invented. It was uncanny. Hawley's influences are obvious, to my mind he is almost disturbingly like Roy Orbison, especially on track 3, Hotel Room which is achingly beautiful. Born Under a Bad Sign has echoes of Morrissey in his more vulnerable moments. The influences may be obvious, but Hawley's songs are sincere and intensely personal, this is no mere pastiche.
From the semi acoustic guitar, vintage brush drums, lush bass...nothing hurried...everything unfolding at it's own natural pace. We are on a nostalgia trip where strings swell and lap steel guitars swoon their love to a cold world. But strongest of all are Hawleys tentative gentle vocals, crooning, as if to a lover cuddled up close. Lush. Heartbreaking. Fabulous.
The title track is one of the most stunningly beautiful songs I've ever heard. It's lushness is enough to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Words can't describe how gorgeous this is.
There are many other singer-songwriters out there but it amazes me that Hawley doesn't break into the million-selling market. How people can put up with tiring, yawnsome dullards like Jamie Cullum, Katie Meleau, James Blunt, Daniel Powter etc etc when this man is around is anyone's guess.
Hawley wears his influences on his sleeve and doesn't pretend to be anybody he isn't. Just Like The Rain, Hotel Room, Darlin' Wait For Me could have been lifted off any old 1950's rock 'n' roll record. Don't let that put you off, this is a good thing! Too many times nowadays music artists are styled to do something that they ain't and Hawley's frankness is refreshing.
And of course another of Hawley's talents apart from song-writing is THAT voice. When you hear that somebody's got a "deep, low" voice you expect Louis Armstrong or, horrors of horrors, latter-day Dylan. But, no, Hawley has an incredibly clear and versatile voice. At once powerful and then fragile. A true crooner in every sense of the word.
For all the guitar heads out there, this can be a guitarist's album as well. Hawley plays nearly all of them (6 & 12 string acoustics & electrics, baritone, Spanish and Hawaiian lap steel!)
Buy this album now and try to force it upon as many people as possible!!
Hawley is an artist who sounds slightly out of place in this era. Read more
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