| Biography
RICHARD HAWLEY ‘LOWEDGES’ LP
Label: Setanta (SETCD 110) Release Date: 10th Feb 2003 The city of Sheffield has a long tradition of ‘little mesters’- fiercely independent craftsmen who work on their own premises, manufacturing individual, specialist items. Even today a handful remain, turning out beautiful yet practical examples of the metalwork the city has long been renowned for. It’s appropriate that Richard Hawley, when asked just why his apparently unexceptional home town should have turned out so many idiosyncratic pop performers over the years, from Cockers Joe to Jarvis via the Human League and ABC, should allude to this past.
‘Some of that spirit seems to linger on - that people are creative in isolation, not in a pack,’ he concedes. This is, after all, a man who admitted that his first solo record, 2001’s wonderful self-titled mini album came about after ‘I got some time at a little studio, went in with a couple of crates of lager and came out with an album.’ He makes its creation sound as easy as it is to listen to, but to jaded ears his elegant balladeering seemed to have fallen from the skies. Though tunes like single ‘Coming Home’ (memorably reviewed in the NME alongside a list of all the stations on the London-Sheffield line) and ‘Naked In Pitsmoor’ might have shared some of their gentle romanticism with recent American sonic archaeologists such as Mark Linkous, Cowboy Junkies and even Chris Isaak, there was something so, well, English about Hawley’s approach (and not just the fact that ‘Bang To Rights’ could have soundtracked any Mike Leigh domestic drama). It was obvious that here was a new talent, arrived perfectly formed. But the thirty five year old Hawley had quite a CV already, and one which could have come out of the past he seemed so comfortable exploring. Born to a musical family- his father and uncle had both played with touring American blues legends at the city’s Esquire Club, while the latter had been a member of Dave Berry’s Cruisers, responsible for Holland’s biggest selling single of the sixties (honest)- he first handled a guitar at the age of six. ‘My dad kept it under the sofa and I was told not to mess with it. But one day I was off school...’ he confesses, ‘It looked like a spaceship to me. I thought ‘whatever it does, I want to learn how to use it’. I thought I’d get a hiding when my dad walked in.’ Instead he was encouraged. At the age of twelve he made his stage debut (‘I’ve played weddings where there were cordons between families.’) and two years later toured Europe for the first time, sleeping on amplifiers in a freezing van. His course was set. ‘I can’t remember ever wanting to do anything else. I’d have made a terrible milkman.’ he says. Soon noticed in eighties Peel favourites Treebound Story, he even auditioned for Morrissey’s solo line-up, before achieving some prominence in the ill-starred Longpigs (‘The Unlucky Alfs of Britpop’). Eventually disbanding in a welter of bad habits and worse luck, he found himself at a loose end, disenchanted with corporate expectations, before his old friends in Pulp enlisted him for touring and later recording duties. ‘I’d stop a bullet for that band,’ he now says, ‘They saved my life. I was going mental with drink an drugs.’ His talent had been spotted by others too. He appeared on sessions for All Saints, Perry Farrell, Finlay Quaye, producer Nellee Hooper’s acclaimed soundtrack for Baz Luhrman’s Romeo and Juliet and, more recently, the similarly heartworn Baxter Dury. But he realised he was onto something of his own when he slipped on a tape of his material one night and ‘managed to shut up Jarv and [Pulp’s Steve] Mackey’. Encouraged by the response from two of his oldest pals, the man with ‘no plan’ realised that he’d found his own voice. And what a voice! Memorably described by the venerable Sir Jimmy Young (ask yer grandad) as ‘a cross between Andy Williams and Percy Sledge’, a man who’d always been ‘wary of The LSD (Lead Singer Disease)’ syndrome found himself compared to the very singers who had soundtracked his own childhood- Billy Fury, Fred Neil, the great Roy Orbison, even Frank Sinatra. Only six months after his debut, the equally excellent Late Night Final, named for the local paper sellers cry, appeared to deserved acclaim, as word spread about the English singer-songwriter who wasn’t desperately in thrall to Nick Drake, Syd Barrett or anyone called Buckley. ’Something Is...!’ and ‘Baby You’re My Light’ were the straightforward love songs, ready to hook couples, while ‘Long Black Train’ (Richard dreams about meeting John Lee Hooker in a graveyard) and ‘Cry A Tear For The Man In The Moon’ (Richard dreams about being stuck in the orbiter while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin make a lunar landing) were more off the wall. ‘Can You Hear The Rain, Love?’, perhaps the most haunting song on a record packed with them, simply recounted the experience of coming down from a trip with someone you love while the roof leaks, managing to capture a uniquely personal moment in a musical language understandable to anyone. Now there’s Lowedges. Taking its name from a place on the outskirts of Sheffield (‘Since I was 15 I thought it was a great title’), it’s more of the same windswept Yorkshire/Nashville crossover, perhaps more refined than before, and even, in the opening track ‘Run For Me’, nodding towards something which might be called Rock (not that Hawley ever pushes it that far). ‘Darlin’ is Country like it used to be, while the charming ‘The Motorcycle Song’, a plaintive paean to a bike ‘full of holes’ uses the state of Hawley’s old Triumph Trophy to express restlessness. ‘Keep Me In Your Heart’ is as gorgeous as anything he’s ever done, ‘It’s Over Love’ is a simple heartbreaker. ‘If you make music with no bearing to the time it’s made in, you stand more chance of being timeless,’ says Hawley, and Lowedges proves him right. Americans think he sounds American, Britons recognise a native nostalgia unheard since the Smiths were at their peak. Hawley just says ‘I’m enjoying this for the right reasons. When I was younger I was worried about being cool. But music is one of the few things where tradition is not such a bad thing.’ And though he complains ‘My guitar case is full of obituaries of people I’d liked to have worked with’, Hawley has already recorded with Scott Walker, producer of Pulp’s We Love Life, and soon hopes to collaborate with his eight year old daughter’s favourite Lee Hazelwood. (Clearly the Hawley genes have been passed on). Better still, a long-standing finger problem has finally been cured, after a successful bone graft. ‘I can play without any fear,’ he states. Just imagine what he’ll be able do with four fingers. That’ll make him thirty three per cent better... STEVE JELBERT Nov 2002 |
