Richard Hawley's guitar tribute to Scott Walker

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.”