is one of only a handful of white vocalists ( and 's , to name a couple more) who legitimately transcended the tag. 's genuine mix of signatures as well as his bittersweet yet buttery vocal tones conjure up images of a smoothed-out version of . On this, his breakthrough album, the native New Yorker scored a hit with the timeless and also polished off another near-classic on While a few of the compositions echo the dying grip of and some of 's vocal arrangements sound more like a hipper version of ( ), the crooner does possess the pipes to carry the offering. even tries his hand at the on the short but sweet instrumental Time will likely render much of disposable, but at the album's best, the songs do carry a singular sound and contain the power to place themselves in a time period, which may just be good enough for lovers. The cut will always stack up, as even producers saw fit to sample the horn riff and bass track a number of times (listen to for one). ~ M.F. DiBella