Tony Christie – Made In Sheffield

It must be Christmas. Just in time for the festive season Sheffield’s most geographically challenged son (for the last time, head west out of Oklahoma City on Route 40 and you’re there) to put out a new record. Long the cult hero for the Yorkshire indie glumerratti (The All Seing I, Jarvis Cocker et al), Tony Christie has decided it is time to pay his native city back. While Johnny Cash and Neil Diamond were both handed a late career boost by Rick Rubin, in Christie’s case the man behind the recording console (and the pedal steel and guitar) is crooner de jour Richard Hawley.While it would have been easy for Christie to cash in on his novelty success with his tribute to his hometown by choosing obvious songs - ‘I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor’, ‘Love Action’ or ‘Common People’ for example, with Hawley’s assistance he has made better choices, and difficult as it is to believe, he has made some of the covers his own. While I had always felt that The Last Shadow Puppet’s were always a rip off of Richard Hawley, the man himself gets the last laugh here on album opener ‘The Only One’s Who Know’, layering is pedal steel all over the Arctic Monkey’s song with Christie’s quiet croon accompanied by swooning strings that knocks the efforts of Messrs. Turner and Kane into a cocked hat. The swooning and crooning continues throughout the album, coming on equal parts Scott Walker and Roy Orbison. The cover of lost Pulp track ‘Born To Cry’ is, lyrically at least, perfect fodder for Christie’s smooth vocals, but stripped of Cocker’s bite it feels safe, Radio 2 fare. While for the most part the schmaltz is kept under control, at times it does feel like it is winning the battle, slipping into high class, well produced muzak. That said, ‘Danger is A Woman In Love’ is surely the finest Bond theme of the last ten years. Hell, it even sounds like it could be the title of a Bond film.Photographed leaning on the stage of an abandoned working men’s club, there is a certain faded glamour to Christie, who at times seems to be the last of his kind. While the cover of Hawley’s own ‘Coles Corner’ is surplus to requirements here (Hawley’s version is so delicately crooned anyway, that there is little to tell them apart), it goes some way to show that perhaps Christie isn’t a man alone after all. This record will almost certainly sell by the shelf-load this festive season, but may disappoint those seeking the novelty schmaltz of ‘...Amarillo’ or ‘Avenues and Alleyways’. What remains to be seen is whether this dignified and subtle album will win Christie a new audience. It certainly deserves to be given a chance. 68%Tony Christie on MySpace