* READ MORE: Richard Hawley talks his musical opening in London, Pulp, Arctic Monkeys and The Leadmill
Last month, the singer-songwriter announced his first compilation, ‘Now Then: The Very Best Of Richard Hawley’, which features 36 songs from across his entire back catalogue along with a re-recording of ‘Not The Only Road’, originally released as ‘The Only Road’ in 2003, which he recently re-worked for The Full Monty TV series.
It also includes his 2019 cover of Bob Dylan’s ‘Ballad Of A Thin Man’, which was recorded for the finale of season five of Peaky Blinders.
As a celebration of the compilation’s release, Hawley performed a live set at The Grapes, a pub in Sheffield which is also the same place the Arctic Monkeys played their first ever gig as a band.
Earlier this year, Hawley spoke to NME about his musical, Standing At The Sky’s Edge and his new material.
Standing at the Sky’s Edge features classic songs by Hawley to portray “a love letter to Sheffield and ode to the iconic Park Hill Estate”, a brutalist housing area that has gone through various eras of dilapidation and regeneration. The show “charts the hopes and dreams of three generations over the course of six tumultuous decades”.
“The great test will be how well it travels. Like Henderson’s Relish and local beer, it might not make it that far south! I hope it does, and it’s great that The National Theatre have given it the chance,” he told NME about the musical.
He continued: “There’s always been the drive for me to do it, and it isn’t money or success, but to make sure that those people’s voices are heard. The people that lived on Park Hill were basically forgotten. They were left to rot and then forced out.”
Speaking about his new music, Hawley said that he was “itching” to get back into the studio to work on the follow-up to 2019 album ‘Further‘ this year.
He said: “I’ve got melodies and chords. I deliberately avoided writing lyrics during lockdown because I didn’t want to write a lockdown record. We still have to live with COVID but I was hopeful the world would be OK, and in many circumstances we are. I don’t know what I fear the most; I don’t know whether I fear COVID more than the fucking Tories. Given a choice, which one would you have? That’s a difficult one. I’m sure those fuckers are doing more damage to the country long-term.
“It just does my head in – how people can be so fucking county, and get away with it. Politicians, they just don’t seem to be accountable to anyone these days. I just find it a bit distressing, and I’m sure everyone does. They’re very clever people, the Tories. That’s why they’re the oldest political party in the world. They’re very resourceful and horrible.”
Hawley added: “There’s usually some [anger] on my records, so we shall see.”
In other news, the singer joined Pulp at their first of two hometown shows in Sheffield in the summer during ‘Common People’ and ‘Sunrise’.
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