Recently, I was sent an e-mail asking to give a listen to the debut album The Hale & Hearty by Heyward Howkins. I’ll say this, I count myself among the lucky ones for having such an honor bestowed upon me. When I heard and re-heard this collection of sounds it was (and is) unlike anything I’ve experienced as of late.
From the very first notes of “Thunderin’ Stop” my ears were pricked and lovingly so, suspended by nothing short of beauty collected in a web of evocative song. The music of Mr. Howkins does more than seduce you, it arrests your attention and sits you down. Then before you know it the hardy spell is cast. As I sat rapt and attentive I let the album The Hale & Hearty play. This is an album which is hard to get through, not for lack of good songs but to the abundance of them. The album consists of 11-songs but it might as well be a hundred, because you’ll start them over and over again as soon as they’re finished. I was bowled over time and time again by their reverential awe and simplistic nature. Continuously an onslaught of pliant sounds washed over me, and a singing voice dosed in cloud mist and the finishing notes of a fine Kentucky bourbon. What can one do when faced with songs as soul-stirring as “Hale & Hearty,” and the breath catching “Spanish Moss” just weaves deep-rooted tendrils round and round one’s vital organs. So much so, by the time “Sugar Sand Stitched Lip” spreads over you like a heavy quilt it is hard to figure out what hit you so delicately, and so sweetly square in the heart.
And if the music is the bone’s marrow, then it is the songwriting hanging like flesh riddled with the puncturing and poignant prose of a deviled-tongued bard. And perhaps the songs wouldn’t be so lethal if not for Heyward’s versatile shape-shifting voice. His is a voice whittling mere words into a cross between first-love-wonderment and old aching heartache.This voice accompanies each contemplative song with something akin to distant rolling thunder warmed over with a lover’s strewn arm across your shoulder. A comforting vibrato hulled of pretense and clothed in a powerful nakedness. Listen to the dazzling giddy-up in the song, “Flash Mob,” how it twirls and unsettles your pulse. Oh, and how that dangerous voice settles low into one’s blood on, “The Live Oak“. How the sung notes are pulled apart and stretched like well-worked sinews straining to carry you off into a melting sun all blood-red and smeared heat.. “Plum And Orange” showcases HH‘s vocal dexterity backed by organ and guitar carrying the song high into the canopy of the olden long-limbed Oak of some pristine and mysterious Pennsylvania wood. The album finishes with the finger-picked “Hudson Pier,” which is a melodic ode wound betwixt an ethereal unnamed female voice and Howkins’ own.
My hat off to Mr. Howkins. The songs he conjures are more akin to the low and high whistling winds, both the joyful and woeful squalls which move our hearts to and fro. Every tender ear should be graced with these rich songs and comforted by his exquisite melodies. The lover’s of the world have gained another gorgeous album to light candles too and dance the ardent dance of mutual adoration and simmering requital—all slow-moving hips and rapid pulse mimicking the sensual rhythms of his well-honed balladry.
Also, as an added bonus check out a previous recording “Praline Country“. Peace.