Second Cup Café: Ryan Shaw

His birth certificate may say he was born in 1980, but Ryan Shaw's voice sounds like it's been aged in a barrel of rhythm and blues since the 1960s.

He adds a new wing to the house that Pickett and Wilson built in his debut album, "This Is Ryan Shaw." The young singer visits Second Cup Café to share songs from the new disc.

Shaw's musical path isn't that different from many of the great soul singers he admires.

Born in Decatur, Ga., Shaw got his start at the age of 5 singing in church. He grew up singing only gospel, never listening to pop or secular music.

He teamed up with his four brothers to form a singing group called The Shaw Boys, influenced by gospel singers Darryl Coley, Keith Brooks, James Moore and the Pace Sisters.

Shaw attended Georgia State University for a short time and in 1998 joined the cast of "I Know I've Been Changed," written and directed by Tyler Perry; that production brought him to New York. After the show closed, he became a regular with the house band at The Motown Café in Manhattan.

Like many great singers from Sam Cooke to Aretha Franklin, Shaw made the transition from gospel music to the secular sounds of rhythm and blues.

"With my church background, a lot of this material was new to me. But when I saw how those songs affected people, I began to understand how their own memories and emotions were invested in the music. Now that was pretty cool," Shaw says in press notes.

Shaw fell in love with the music, and in 2004 joined the Fabulous Soul Shakers, a vocal group specializing in classic soul and doo-wop.

The group's guitarist, music veteran Johnny Gale, invited veteran percussionist Jimmy Bralower to hear Shaw perform.

Impressed, Bralower brought Shaw and Gale to his recording studio where they cut four of Shaw's featured numbers with the Soul Shakers, including "Do the 45" and "I Found a Love."

That recording session grew into Shaw's debut album, released in April. The album includes three of Shaw's original songs as well as covers of soul classics, including Jackie Wilson's "I'll Be Satisfied" and Bobby Womack's "Lookin' For A Love."

"The strength of his own writing shows that Ryan Shaw isn't just a great singer," Bralower says. "He's a real artist, he's got something to say, and he's going to be around for a long, long time."