It's impossible to discuss Sheffield singer and songwriter Richard Hawley without a glance backward in the general direction of strong, dignified vocalists like Roy Orbison, Fred Neil, and Johnny Cash. Hawley himself, former touring guitarist for Pulp and member of the second-tier Britpop band Longpigs, is forthcoming about his music's origins. His influences are not only on his sleeve, they're reflected in his tour schedule and his choice of collaborators. Yes, he sounds like he's listened to a lot of Lee Hazlewood; he's also opening for Nancy Sinatra at a number of dates in England. And not only is the Scott Walker connection undeniable, Hawley has spent time in the studio with the man himself after meeting initially through the Pulp connection.
Coles Corner is Hawley's third full-length, and it finds him further refining his sound. His voice is richer and the arrangements have an extra smidge of polish. The songs are remarkably clear and direct, trading almost exclusively in familiar couplets that have become part of western pop currency. "Hold back the night" is the first line of the opening title track, and the chorus begins "Going downtown where there's music/ Going where voices fill the air." It's rarely difficult to pick out the next line. Yes, it's tears Hawley is talking about in "Just Like the Rain". The countrypolitan ballad "Wait for Me" seems plucked from another epoch: "So think of me when you feel that moon," Hawley croons, "oh it calls to me, as it calls to you." First time through you might want to stop and say, Hold up, there's still a moon? I thought it fell from the sky somewhere in the early 70s.
Yes, the moon is still up there, and Coles Corner is unapologetically retro to the max but it works. Hawley's style, his sturdy baritone singing songs that combine hints of country with pre-rock pop and orchestral flourishes overlaid with healthy dollop of reverb, has a robust appeal. It translates in 2005 because this corner of music was always about nostalgia and taut drama constructed with tightly circumscribed language. Hawley resides deep inside this material, writing songs with the melodic muscle to stand up next to standards. You can make a case against cultural recycling, but you can't argue away the emotional impact of the orchestral build on "The Ocean". As he describes a scene on a gray desolate beach where one imagines every day is like Sunday, new instruments are added bar-by-bar until and the tension is ratcheted up to the breaking point. With the tape saturated at the climax Hawley lets loose with a booming "Here comes the rain!" Pity the realist who reaches for the umbrella.
The closing piano instrumental "Last Orders" is a cover that nicely punctuates how and why Hawley got here. It's played on an upright with the sustain pedal to the floor inside an empty cavern of a room. As the tune progresses the echo around the piano mixes with a dusty cloud of Eno-esque electronic treatment, the first time on the record we hear a sound that couldn't have been reproduced in the early '60s. Then finally the keyboard drops out completely to close with two minutes of a golden, light-speckled drone of aching poignancy. It's then you realize that Hawley's music can go wherever he wants it to go. He's not stuck in the past. He inhabits his record collection because he likes it there and has a feeling we will too. He's right.
