Richard Hawley

Former Pulp guitarist Richard Hawley has built a solo career upon mining a very specific vein of orchestral pop—the lush, string-and-horn laden croonery of countrypolitan Lee Hazlewood, the echo-drenched melodrama of Scott Walker, a bit of Sun-era Roy Orbison—while circumventing potential cries of "pastiche!" through the sheer force of his earnest vocal delivery and pitch-perfect production.

Hawley's records exist in a nether-decade in which song titles like "Tonight the Streets Are Ours" and "The Sun Refused to Shine" are delivered with the straightest of faces, because, 1950s, 1990s, or 2000s, these sorts of grandiose sentiments always mean something if you say 'em right. And for the most part, when Hawley says 'em, they do.

Hawley's newest, Lady's Bridge, continues in the vein of 2005's Mercury Prize-nominated Cole's Corner (similarly named for a monument in his hometown of Sheffield, England), draping his honeyed-velvet baritone in impeccably classy arrangements comprising the usual strings-and-horns along with Nashville-ian finery like pedal steel and vibrato'd guitars. It's deep, gorgeous, cinematic stuff, and the songwriting follows suit with era-appropriate melodic ballads in the old-time vein.

Lady's Bridge's stronger tracks—the wide-screen swoon of lead single "Tonight the Street are Ours," the gentle cascade of "The Sea Calls" (Hawley's resigned refrain of "I've got to go…" is old-fashioned heartbreak at its best), the Elvis Costello-skiffle of "I'm Looking for Someone to Find Me"—are stone-cold timeless pop songs, long-lost classics to be held up next to the influences they so clearly lionize. But the album itself doesn't quite work as a straight-through listen—the high-rolling production gets a bit exhausting by the end, the songs less distinct. That said, Hawley's approach and sound are utterly original, and that alone is worth the price of admission.

—Todd Goldstein
10.19.07

Richard Hawley's last album, Cole's Corner, was nominated and shortlisted for the Mercury Prize (the British equivalent of the Pulitzer). He may not have won it (the Arctic Monkeys did), but it did bring his name and ultimately his music to a far greater group of people than had ever been exposed to them before. This is a grand thing, simply because Hawley's articulate, timeless brand of rock-based pop is sophisticated, focused, and ultimately quite beautiful. In this day and age, a man who can deliver three solid albums and an EP without a crap tune has got something. Cole's Corner, named for a geographical location in Sheffield where Hawley lives, was an elaborate meditation on friendship, memory, and love, inhabited by the ghosts for whom that little piece of real estate -- the concrete corner outside a now bulldozed department store -- was idealized as a piece of hidden history in the human heart. Being an album celebrated by nearly everyone but those critics who have sawdust instead of blood in their veins, it might have been a difficult act to follow and a singular event in the career of a less talented songwriter.

For Hawley, that is not the case. Lady's Bridge -- named for another locale in Sheffield -- is as moving, tender, and literate as its predecessor, without the least bit of formula or pretension applied. The location is Sheffield's oldest bridge, a place that divided the working-class part of the city from its upper-crust denizens. Hawley grew up on the poor side of it. According to what he has said in interviews, Lady's Bridge is also a metaphor for the crossing of a bridge in his own life -- and that doesn't necessarily mean his career. Hawley's father, Dave, a lifelong Teddy Boy from the first generation of the Edwardian youth subculture in the '50, was a gone rockabilly cat who worshipped Gene Vincent (smart man) and played music his entire life. He worked all day and played at night with everyone from the likes of Muddy Waters to the local wannabes; he was a real working musician, and a profound influence on his son. Dave Hawley died after a yearlong battle with lung cancer as Richard was in the process of making this record. His presence is deeply felt on the punchy little rockabilly number "Serious," with its jaunty rhythm, doo wop harmonies, and Hawley's warm, silvery guitar lines strumming and playing those beautiful Paul Burlison lines in the background. His suave baritone has the phrasing of the era down, but he sings in his own voice, and when the reverb-laden guitar break inevitably happens, he doesn't make a big deal of it. It's a timeless pop song that could have been written in 1956, but this is no Stray Cats romp; it comes via a much more literate approach to writing in general. Hawley leaves the crap on the cutting-room floor and gets the tune itself out and doesn't worry about the rest.

This is followed by the album's first single, the brilliant "Tonight the Streets Are Ours." This track is simply gloriously written and performed. There are acoustic and electric guitars, a string orchestra, a backing chorus, a tinkling piano, and even perhaps a glockenspiel. That said, its tight melody and Hawley's relaxed delivery create a multi-textured realm of hopes and dreams that usually exists nowhere but the movies. Truth be told, this cut is one of the only songs in this young century that's as good or better than the movies. It's actually a textbook example of what makes a great song: catchy melody, tight bridge, and a sendoff that's out of this world with its short ramp of instruments. In addition, the listener knows what the tune is about just by the title, but is still uplifted when the full measure comes booming over the box. There are also astonishingly sad ballads here, such as the album opener, "Valentine" (it took cojones to open a record with a song so sad). It's about a pair of lovers who have been together for a long time, and one of them is leaving the world, and is afra