Ryan Shaw

On his debut album, 26-year-old Ryan Shaw—a sometime musical theater performer from Decatur, Georgia—mines a vintage vein that few modern R&B artists have approached as wholeheartedly. Sure, Ruben Studdard, John Legend and Anthony Hamilton all work at recovering the golden age of R&B, but who else (aside from cover bands) is trying to be today's Otis Redding or Wilson Pickett? With a voice that's funky and just a little bit gritty when he yells, Shaw has made a record that could have been found in a dusty thrift store—but its sound is anything but moldy.

Yet Shaw doesn't have the "old soul" quality of Redding or Pickett. If he sounds like anyone, it's Billy Gordon, who sang lead on The Contours' "Do You Love Me," a hard, hyperactive single that compels dancing. That marvelous twitchiness comes through mostly on covers like the Dozier, Holland, and Holland track "Working on a Building of Love" and "Mish Mash," but Shaw's own writing skills tend a little smoother, as on "Over & Done" and "I Am Your Man." Shaw should succeed not only based on the popular appetite for nostalgia, but also on his own extremely strong merits.

—Hillary Brown
06.18.07