I've toured the world more than Captain Cook

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Northern soul: 'I've always had wistful notions of Sheffield,' says Richard Hawley, whose new album, Coles Corner, is inspired by his native city

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Richard Hawley is reaping the benefits of being robbed this year. The 39-year-old singer-songwriter was the victim of a major crime in September - at least according to fellow Sheffield musicians the Arctic Monkeys.

They were both nominated for the Mercury Music Prize, but the young newcomers snatched the award from under Hawley's nose, while insisting that he should have won.

The extra attention subsequently sent the quiet musician's third solo album, Coles Corner (Mute), to gold status. Now he's playing a prominent role in the success of old pal Jarvis Cocker's self-titled solo debut, and fast selling out a London gig of his own.

Hawley cuts a very different figure from the extrovert Jarvis as he leans forward in his plush chair while ignoring the no-smoking policy, putting cigarettes out in his drink in the absence of an ashtray.

He's a never-flustered, deadpan comedian in cowboy boots; his swooping greased quiff, vintage shades and hare lip make him look like no other music star of this decade or beyond, but his northern charm and skills with a guitar have led to work with everyone from Pulp and Nancy Sinatra to All Saints and Robbie Williams.

His music is beguiling: a deeply soothing mix of echoing guitars and swooning strings, topped off with a cavernous croon that recalls the momentous tones of singing legends such as Scott Walker, Johnny Cash and Roy Orbison, with hints of country and the romance of the Fifties dancehall.

It sounds oblivious to time and fashion and will still be loved and played decades hence. It's music for grown-ups, or as its composer puts it, "cheesy old bloke music", and more and more people continue to fall for his rich, vintage sound.

Yet it took Hawley a while to muster the inclination to record for himself after years of working on records for other people. It was only after unrelenting persuasion from his friends in Pulp that he decided to record his demos for release.

"I could never get my head around that movement from being sat in your bedroom writing songs to getting to the front of a stage," he says. But then, after years pottering away in the shadows with other bands, he changed his mind: "I just thought: 'No one's gonna like this but I'm gonna do it anyway', because I'm belligerent."

He was born into a musical family and toured Europe as a teenager, playing guitar in his father and uncle's covers band. His grandfather was a music hall entertainer; his Dad, Dave, did well as a musician in the Sixties and Seventies, leading the house band at what is now Sheffield's popular Leadmill venue, and playing with both Eddie Cochran and John Lee Hooker.

Apart from a brief, ill-advised stint in HMV, the music shop, ("It were aural torture") Hawley was the archetypal jobbing musician. He did a seven-year stint with the briefly successful indie band Longpigs, and a similar spell as a guitarist with Pulp. "I've toured the world 13 times, so I've actually circumnavigated the globe more times than Captain Cook," he says. He also helped Finley Quaye to the top of the charts with Maverick a Strike in 1997; he collaborated on the soundtrack to Baz Luhrmann's updating of the Romeo and Juliet story; and he wrote Clean for Robbie Williams on Life Thru a Lens. Impressive stuff.

But he bristles at the idea that he was a hack, strumming strings for whoever-asked him. "I've done a few things that are probably suspect to pay the bills," he says. "But 99 per cent of what I've done has been in a creative vein. Whenever I've been asked to do session work, it's been because I'd bring something to the recording. I've never been asked just to read from a sheet of music - I can't read music anyway."

If anything proves he's not in the business for the money, it was his refusal to enter into a seriously lucrative-partnership with Robbie Williams. Most singer-songwriters would have jumped at the chance to co-write an album with Britain's biggest star. Not Hawley, who snubbed an invitation to collaborate on Williams's Intensive Care. "I just didn't want to do it," he says in his deep, blunt Yorkshire accent. "It would have changed my life too much. Earning millions of pounds is not the reason why I get up in the morning."

He is music's reluctant hero. A firm family man, he is married with three children, a girl of 12 and two boys aged six and three. He finished with his drugs phase years ago, though he is still dedicated to smoking and drinking. Not for him the high-speed glitz of London. An abiding love of the currently red-hot musical melting pot of Sheffield has informed all of his solo work.

Coles Corner is the name of a meeting point by a long-demolished department store, and earlier album Late Night Final was named after the call of the local newspapermen. "I've always had wistful notions of Sheffield. It isn't something that's developed as I've got older," he says. "I've never lived anywhere else, other than out of a suitcase. I hope the current focus doesn't go away and that the bands that are being championed actually achieve something lasting."

But even if younger local groups such as Arctic Monkeys and the Long Blondes eventually disappear in a puff of hype, Sheffield has one troubadour whose music will withstand the vagaries of fashion. "I just love making music. There's only 12 notes but there's all the colours of the rainbow in there." And you can hear them all.

THE SOUND OF SHEFFIELD

Arctic Monkeys
First they had a number-one single with I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor. Then they had another. Then their album Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not (Domino) became the fastest selling debut in UK chart history, won the Mercury Music Prize and made it onto the iPod of every politician in the country.

The Long Blondes
Elegant frontlady Kate Jackson is the indie boys' pin-up of choice. Her band's smart, sexy debut, Someone to Drive You Home (Rough Trade) bears the imprint of city-mate Jarvis Cocker: arch, lustful and torn between municipal pride and disgust.

Milburn
Meet the Antarctic Monkeys; Milburn's debut Well, Well, Well (Mercury) ploughs a similar furrow to their city pals, with a sound the band call "post-Morrissey northern romanticism". The Arctics paid them the compliment of calling them the better musicians.

Bromheads Jacket
A chaotic live proposition, their first release Dits From the Commuter Belt (Marquis Cha Cha), released this week, has already drawn high praise from music bloggers.

Richard Hawley plays Shepherds Bush Empire on 29 November (0870 771 2000)

 

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