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wikiBiography Throwback soul singer Ryan Shaw was born December 26, 1980, in Decatur, Georgia, to a deeply religious family. He began singing in the Pentecostal church when he was only three years old, and took his first solo when he was five. Music, specifically, religious music, continued to be an all-important part of his life, and while he was enrolled at Georgia State University he tried out, and made the cut, for a part in a gospel musical. In 1998 he dropped out of school and joined the cast of Tyler Perry''s I Know I''ve Been Changed, moving to New York to perform, and when the play''s run ended, he found work singing old Motown hits and dance songs from the 1950s and ''60s (many of which were unfamiliar to Shaw, who had listened to little secular music before leaving Georgia) and as a member of the band the Fabulous Soul Shakers, which he joined in 2004. The group''s guitarist, Johnny Gale, convinced his friend Jimmy Bralower to check the young singer out, and in 2006, after being impressed by what he heard, Bralower, a percussionist and producer, invited Shaw and Gale to his home to record a short demo. This got the attention of Columbia, and in 2007 the label issued This Is Ryan Shaw, a collection of covers from artists like Wilson Pickett, Bobby Womack, and Jackie Wilson, as well as some original songs. Following its release, he opened for Van Halen and found additional success with 2010''s It Gets Better. His third album, Real Love, appeared on Dynotone in 2012.
Shaw began singing in Pentecostal church at the age of three, having been raised in a deeply religious household. Shaw won a spot in a gospel musical at Georgia State University, and in 1998 he dropped out of college to take part in Tyler Perry''s play I Know I''ve Been Changed. At the end of the play''s run he began doing Motown covers in New York, joining the group Fabulous Soul Shakers in 2004. He recorded a demo in 2006, won the ear of Columbia Records, and was signed to said label. The album, This is Ryan Shaw, mixes new material with covers of songs by Wilson Pickett, Bobby Womack, and Jackie Wilson. He was the opening act for the Van Halen tour 07-08. At the end of 2009 he reached some fame in the Netherlands with his single It Gets Better, which peaked at number 2 on the single top 100 charts. On May 15th, 2012 Ryan Shaw released Real Love on Dynotone Records.
Ryan Shaw was born in Decatur, Georgia and grew up in a deeply religious Pentecostal family. He began singing in church at the age of five and later formed a family group with his four brothers called the Shaw Boys. "We didn''t listen to secular or pop music either in or out of our house," he explains. "So my early musical influences are all from the gospel world—singers like Darryl Coley, Keith Brooks, James Moore, and the Pace Sisters."
After briefly attending Georgia State University, Ryan successfully auditioned for the gospel musical A Good Man Is Hard to Find (Part II). In 1998, he joined the cast of I Know I''ve Been Changed, written and directed by Tyler Perry (Diary of a Mad Black Woman). Ryan came to New York with this production and performed to sold-out crowds at the Beacon Theater.
After the closing of I Know I''ve Been Changed, Ryan joined the resident cast of the Motown Café on West 57th Street where he performed Detroit soul favorites by the Four Tops and Marvin Gaye. Later he found another steady gig with a group that he says played "just about anything from the Fifties and Sixties that you could dance to - Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole, Stax and Motown, Dion & the Belmonts, you name it."
"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."
The more Ryan heard of the sounds of the Fifties, Sixties, and Seventies, the more aware he became of the missing ingredients in contemporary music. "I''m into chords, melodies, lyrics, arrangements - I''m into music in all its aspects. It seems like the late Eighties were the last time we really had all these elements in Black music, with artists like Anita Baker and Luther Vandross. By the mid-Nineties, we were down to two chords and a drum loop."
In 2004 Ryan was recruited into the Fabulous Soul Shakers, a vocal group specializing in classic soul and doo-wop. Johnny Gale, the group''s guitarist, is a New York music veteran who''s worked with everyone from Hank Ballard to the Ramones. Deeply impressed by Ryan''s talent, Johnny urged his old friend Jimmy Bralower to check him out. As a percussionist and drum programmer, Jimmy was among the city''s most in-demand session players, having worked with superstars like Madonna, Peter Gabriel, and Steve Winwood.
One night in 2006, Bralower came down to hear Ryan sing at a small Lower East Side club...and was blown away by what he heard. He and Johnny Gale invited Ryan back to Jimmy''s basement studio on Long Island where they quickly cut four of Ryan''s featured numbers with the Soul Shakers including "Do the 45" and "I Found a Love."
