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Hometown: Chewelah, Washington.

The lineup: Allen Stone (vocals, guitar).

The background: Allen Stone is the latest soul sensation from the States. He is Joss Stone's spiritual brother, a near relation of him from the Commitments or a distant cousin of our Daley, although to be honest he seems less modernistic than the Mancunian ginger nut with the vertical hair. He is steeped in the 60s and 70s, rooted in the rootsy, a living, heavy-breathing restatement of the idea of black music at its most diminished, hardly taking into account its history as a future-sonic force and the quantum leaps made over the years/decades in the studio. He has been compared to the all-time greats, particularly Stevie Wonder, although by that we're assuming the people doing the comparing are thinking of his vocal timbre rather than any skills he might have as a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter or producer.

Still, the Americans have been getting in as much of a tiz about Stone's breath-control as the Brits do on a Saturday night whenever they hear a kid bellow a few notes in succession. He is (in ascending order of hyperbole): VH1's You Oughta Know artist for January, he made our favourite late-night US TV host Conan O'Brien mouth "Oh.My.God" when Stone appeared on his show (and as a consequence he's not our favourite late-night US TV host any more), and he has been described by someone high up at MTV as "the best voice I've ever heard", which makes you genuinely worry about the staff lower down.

He's the son of a preacher man – no, really – who was raised singing gospel in a tiny American town. He was three years old when he began singing in his dad's church, 14 when he was leading worship, and 15 when he heard Stevie's Innervisions for the first time. Clearly, he missed the point, the beauty, the contextual radicalness of that 1973 masterpiece – missed that the use of synthesisers and visionary breadth of colours were like nothing that came before. It was, effectively, Otis Blue rewired by Brian Eno. Stone merely reproduces the vocal tics and falsetto screeches, the supplications and invocations of that golden era of electronic R&B invention – which is to say, roughly 1% of the achievement.

"I'm sick and tired of soul music looking so crisp and clean and proper," says Stone, who believes he's providing the antidote: "My soul is just a little bit greasy." It is full of signifiers of soul, including Hammond organ and lyrics that talk in the most predictable, rote fashion about satisfaction and celebration. There has been a lot of blather about the influence in his work of musicians as varied as Donny Hathaway and Al Green but little reflection of their difference. And there is much testifying and remonstrating but scant demonstration from Stone that he in any way realises the best soul music has always represented a break with tradition not comprised a series of genuflecting nods towards it.

The buzz: "If you like Stevie Wonder, listen to Allen Stone."
The truth: Where he's coming from? The early-70s, minus the pioneer spirit.   
   
Most likely to: Jam with Jamiroquai.    

Least likely to: Induce wonder.     
  
What to buy: You can sample Stone's wares on Spotify. His album is released in the UK on 25 February via Decca. 

File next to: Mayer Hawthorne, Joss Stone, Daley, Fitz and the Tantrums.

Links allenstone.com.

Tuesday's new band: Satellites.

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