Soul of a romantic

No matter. Only the gnarled of spirit would not let a man exorcise his previous waywardness and as the cascading waves of loveliness swept across an enraptured Scala, the evidence was clear: this is a major talent.

Songs such as Run For Me and The Ocean were delivered in a rich baritone, enhanced by the rich, widescreen sweep of eccentric Sixties hero Scott Walker. However, Walker has an accidental history of spawning whey-faced, whey-souled disciples. There are more arrows in Hawley's quiver.

He described his music as "gentle", but the country feel that surfaced intermittently was given its head on the twangsome (Wading Through) The Waters Of My Time, shortly after Hotel Room, which evoked the innocence of a Fifties teenage love song.

The evening's highlight, the comforting and uplifting Darlin' Wait For Me, had a hymnal quality akin to that which coursed through Elvis Presley's gospel-inclined later work.

These delights were delivered with gruff but funny betweensong patter reminiscent of an extremely sweary turn at a Yorkshire working men's club.

The twist was that beneath Hawley's genre-hopping and northern charm lay the unabashed soul of a lovelorn romantic, not least in Coles Corner, the title track of his current album, christened after the now-demolished courting couples' meeting point in Hawley's beloved Sheffield.

Appropriately, the first song of his encore was a solo version of Who's Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Little Feet?, a lullaby sung to three generations of Hawleys including his own children.

"This will send you to sleep happy," he smiled. "Not of course, that you're unhappy." How right he was.

Richard Hawley, Kate Walsh