Richard Hawley played the late Scott Walker’s guitar on his new album.
The 57-year-old singer explained all of the instruments he used on his upcoming record, ‘In This City They Call You Love’, had a personal meaning to him because of their previous owners.
He told MOJO magazine: “Scott [Walker]’s family got in touch with me because I was friends with him.
“Scott wanted me to use one of his guitars and a representative of the family flew from Denmark with the guitar to put it in my hand in Sheffield.
“On the new album, everything that’s a guitar solo was played on Scott’s beautiful, very old Telecaster, with love.
“I also used my dad’s old Gretch and a guitar that Duane Eddy gave me.
“The album is most definitely a family affair.”
The title of the record was inspired by Richard’s “muse”, his home city of Sheffield.
He explained: “In Sheffield, which is my muse and always will be, people do call you ‘love’.
“Every single day of my life I hear the word ‘love’, haha.
“It’s the language we use, very much a ‘here’ thing.
“Then you read the news, which is enormously depressing, and you just seem to see the word ‘hate’.”
The ‘Baby, You’re My Light’ singer also wanted to convey a sense of “unity”.
He added: “So it’s that and voices singing together.
“Something positive, and I don’t mean this in a soft way.
“This concept of unity seems to be something that’s kind of missing out of the world.
“So some sort of healing, I think was going off. From what? Probably the last few years, we’ve all been battered and bruised, but it’s not a lockdown album.”