Ryan Shaw

This Is Ryan Shaw arrived in 2007, following years of gospel singing, theatre and work with the Fabulous Soul Shakers. That experience helps explain the confidence of the delivery, but the recording is more than a demonstration of range. Shaw’s phrasing makes the exchange between a lead line, the instrumental response and a backing voice feel active.

The early partnership with Jimmy Bralower and Johnny Gale gave the songs a carefully considered setting. Familiar soul forms could provide a starting point while the actual performances supplied their own timing and emphasis. We Got Love and Do the 45 show different aspects of that first recording chapter.

Real Love followed in 2012, with Karina and the title song among its points of entry. More original writing sits within the album’s older musical vocabulary, making the connection to classic soul a matter of craft as well as repertoire. Imagining Marvin in 2020 takes a different approach to that relationship. Marvin Gaye’s work provides the central conversation, with new songs sharing the record with interpretations and guests including Rob Thomas and Derek Trucks. Shaw’s account of the project describes trying material in front of an audience before the final recording, allowing the performance to establish what the song needed. The distinction between a tribute and a new statement becomes less rigid when the singer’s own experience is allowed into the phrasing. The records are strongest where that experience changes a familiar musical gesture, making the inherited form feel like something happening in the present.