Profile in this morning's Metro:
Ryan Shaw has great timing for delivering retro-cool. From the first few seconds of the organ-laced “Do the 45” — the first song off his album “This is Ryan Shaw” — listeners realize this dude is taking it way, way back, back to the era when men always wore hats and ladies never chewed gum, back to Sam Cooke and Otis Redding and when people listened to music on 45s. This is, after all, also the year Amy Winehouse seduced everybody with her own Motown-era inspired “Back to Black.”
Shaw’s debut is one of the year’s buzz albums, earning him a spot in Bonnaroo and a show at the Highline Ballroom tonight. Of course, the 26-year-old’s music hasn’t been as easy to find as that of, say, Justin Timberlake or Ne-Yo, but Shaw says he’s happy with his current position as an indie darling and a critic’s fave. In fact, the Atlanta transplant, who has lived in New York for about five years, doesn’t even get noticed much when he takes the train from his nest in Crown Heights. (continue at metro)
