Sam Hawksley - Birds (2021)

Sam Hawksley’s “Birds” album is a surprise in that it flies in the face of tradition, with Sam not singing any of these songs himself. Instead the album features female singers from Australia, New Zealand and the US.

Hawksley began this record at the beginning of the pandemic in early 2020, when he, like just about every other musician in the world started thinking, “What in the world am I going to do?”

Then he thought, “What if I? What if I? … What if I made a record of songs I’d recorded and or written but sung by women….?”

“Nobody was asking me to make a record like this, fans weren’t crying out for it, there was no record label wanting it, I’m not even sure my mum even thought it was a good idea… I just wanted to do it, so I did.”

The multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter said he started imagining whose voices would bring the songs to life or give them a new lease on life, which he described was similar to casting for a movie.

“I say this is the record for people who like my songs but aren’t so keen on my voice,” Hawksley laughed.