Lady's Bridge

Uncut - 4 stars out of 5 -- "While he still sings like a kinder, sadder Jarvis Cocker, he does it with such sincerity that it seems churlish to resist." Spin - 3.5 stars out of 5 -- "[T]he record maintains its hypnotic spell with slow-as-IV drip rhythms that set the scene for Hawley's moonlit walks down lonely streets." Entertainment Weekly - "Haunting yet hopeful, BRIDGE crosses the gap from great to instant classic." -- Grade: A Magnet - "Echoes of Roy Orbison, Gene Pitney and Lee Hazlewood abound; it's all in the sympathetic, tasteful playing of Hawley's backing band, his own burnished, bruised baritone...and the little guitar licks..."

'Lady's Bridge' is the fifth album from Sheffield-based singer-songwriter Richard Hawley, and is the follow-up to his 2005 Mercury Prize nominated album 'Coles Corner'. Still mining a rich vein of musical heritage that takes in everything from Nat 'King' Cole to rockabilly and indie, the lush atmospherics on this album are complimented perfectly by Hawley's rich, deep voice. Includes the single 'Tonight The Streets Are Ours'.|

Richard Hawley's 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 music to a far greater audience than he had ever been exposed to before. 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 of that little piece of real estate -- the concrete corner outside a now bulldozed department store -- were idealized as hidden history in the chambers of the human heart. 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 afraid of what that means. The tough realization here, put in an original way, is that most relationships -- especially the successful ones -- end in this way. "Don't need no valentines, no no/Don't need no roses/They just take me back in time, no no/Not you're not here/Anymore/Not anymore." Acoustic guitars strum, strings swell, and drums, heavy on the tom-toms, plod along and underscore every line as Hawley allows his voice to emote just enough to break the listener's heart into bits. Truth be told, though this is a contemporary song, Jack Nitszch to be continued...