Mayer Hawthorne HOW DO YOU DO

When your debut album is released on the taste-making underground label Stones Throw and declared fantastic by both John Mayer and Kanye West, you're unbelievably cool and completely under the microscope. Such is the story of Mayer Hawthorne, the Ann Arbor, Michigan resident who early on did a lot of hip-hop things and such, but for the purposes of his second album and debut for the major label Universal, he's the neo-soul singer with a gifted voice who uncannily sounds like a '60s-era Temptation given the 2011 ability to drop an F-bomb. That may sound like Cee Lo Green, and there's no doubt that How Do You Do stands in the shadow the Goodie Mob member who got there first, but this particular bespectacled singer looks like a Wall Street intern, making his Motown jones all the more unexpected, and for some, suspect. On top of it, he retains a crate-crawling nerd's love of nostalgic soul that's very Stones Throw, so expect some overly authentic numbers where the adherence to an aesthetic