In an era where next big things, scenes and in-sounds flash by and even our favourite tunes are listened to on shuffle we need music that will stick around for a while, albums that we can go on listening to in one sitting until they wear out like previous generations had done with their Johnny Cash, Frank Sinatra, The Beatles and The Smiths records.

Something real. Something timeless. Something proper.

Just as he did with the Mercury nominated Coles Corner, Richard Hawley has risen once again to the challenge of quality in a cheap thrills economy. Recorded between January and June this year his new album Lady’s Bridge is filled with enough classics to last you a lifetime. Great music doesn’t need hype, it makes its own friends. And Lady’s Bridge will find plenty.

When Coles Corner was nominated for the 2006 Mercury Music Prize Richard Hawley was an outsider with an album whose success had been by slow burn word of mouth. But by the evening of the ceremony itself he’d become many peoples favourite, including winners Arctic Monkeys who remarked “Somebody call 999, Richard Hawley’s been robbed”. Naturally, Hawley himself remained firmly rooted to reality but then you’d expected nothing less of a man whose velveteen lullabies have seen him labelled “the Elvis of the North” among many other tributes but who regards himself as “that speccy twat from Sheffield”.
Today, Coles Corner still sounds wonderful but the good news is that with Lady’s Bridge he has made an album that’s even better, more ambitious in scope, bigger and bolder.

“I didn’t want to re-invent the wheel or anything,” he explains. “I write songs and I play guitar, that’s it. There isn’t any mystery to it. I’m just constantly in search of something beautiful, melodies that just hit. That’s kind of what I do, I find it difficult to explain because its so simple.”

“It’s just a screen getting ever wider I think. When I was making it I kept seeing a headline in my mind — ‘Hawley discovers tempo shock!’”
It’s true, Lady’s Bridge is a far more varied set than Coles Corner. The trademark voice is still there and better than ever but here, he explores not just those warm effortless ballads that seem to stop time but rockabilly and doo-wop too. The rockabilly tracks – Serious and Looking For Someone To Find Me – come following his acting debut in the movie Flick in which he appears as a rockabilly radio DJ opposite Oscar winner Faye Dunaway. “I was supposed to be recording the soundtrack but I got distracted like I always do,” he says. “Instead of doing what I was supposed to be doing I wrote Serious instead.”

There’s also more of a band feel to this album with regular players John Trier (keyboards), Shez Sheridan (guitar) and Dean Beresford (drums) all taking starring roles. Bassist and co-producer Colin Elliot meanwhile stepped up to the challenge of arranging the 16-piece string orchestra on the lush opener, Valentine.

As with the mythical Sheffield lovers meeting place Coles Corner the album is named after another local landmark. “Lady’s Bridge the oldest bridge in the city,” says Richard. “Historically it connected the poor side of town, where I’m from, to the rich side. But it’s also significant for me because I feel like I’ve crossed a bridge in my life lately.”

According to the law of Hawley all great songs should make you want to fight, shag, cry or drink. Lady’s Bridge fulfils the latter two categories in spades and once you know where to look there’s some of the other two as well.

As they did on Coles Corner ghosts haunt Lady’s Bridge – there are the victims of the Great Sheffield Flood remembered in Roll River Roll, the dying embers of past romances in Valentine and the glorious The Sun Refused To Shine, the lonesome wanderlust of The Sea Calls and Dark Road. There is tenderness (the lovely Our Darkness which finds our hero returning to the sanctuary of home) and grit too – Tonight The Streets Are Ours is quite possibly the most beautiful song about the brutality of the British governments Anti-social behaviour policy you are ever likely to hear.

It’s an intensely personal record for many reasons but mainly because during its recording Richard lost his father Dave Hawley, after a three-year battle with cancer, in February 2007. Hawley Snr was a man who not only inspired his son to pick up a guitar but who gave him his work ethic (he was part of a generation of musicians who’d work in the steel industry all day then play gigs at night) and his sense of humour. Here, in Richard’s words was “a first wave teddy boy who lived life to the full” and “could make a cat laugh”.

“It was very difficult to not let the events that were happening affect the record,” he says “I tried to keep balanced and keep my eye on the ball. The last thing my dad would say to me every night at the hospice would be ‘now then bastard, keep your eye on ball’ and then just as I was leaving he’d say: ‘and don’t forget my ale and fags’.”

As a tribute to his dad the album cover features Richard in Sheffield’s answer to The Cavern, the legendary Club 60, on the stage where his father, over 30 years ago, played with blues legends John Lee Hooker and Muddy Walters. No doubt his father would also approve of the series of videos Richard’s made with Made In England director Shane Meadows – one of the growing legion of Hawley fans – which feature the singer in various states of embarrassment enjoying a romance with a mannequin, navigating a wheelchair around his local park and dressed as John Travolta crooning to a baffled audience in a retirement home.

“Shane just got what I wanted to do,” he says. “I take my music very seriously but videos are a bit of a joke. I despise videos where you’ve got somebody acting out the music or stood there. Not only are you being sold something by these muppets but add into the bargain you have to deal with their ego and that whole singing dancing bollocks. When you do videos ultimately you’re trying to sell stuff to people but the least you can do is to do it with a bit of grace and have a laugh.”

The album was recorded at Yellow Arch Studio in Neepsend, Sheffield in the dilapidated building Hawley and friends helped restore almost four years ago. As he’d done with Jarvis Cocker (who Richard persuaded to return to Sheffield if he wanted his help on his debut solo album) there was never any question of recording abroad or in a major studio.

“It’s all like being on the deck of the Starship Enterprise all them places,” he says. “If you’re going to going to get down to the nitty-gritty of what you’re feeling you don’t need ciabatta and a pool table. You’ve got to focus on what you’re doing, all you need is a chip butty and a pen and paper.”

Besides, Yellow Arch gives him what he calls “that Sun Studio red light factor” and the pressure of turning up with the bones of an idea and leaving with a masterpiece. Back in January he began recording with 40 songs in various states of togetherness. Four months later he left with 11 classics to add to the Hawley cannon. There’s just no stopping the speccy twat.