Eli "Paperboy" Reed & the True Loves

Roll With You (Q Division)

Time stopped somewhere around 1960 for Eli "Paperboy" Reed, a baby-faced Brookline native who channels vintage soul and R&B with the skill of a scholar and the fealty of a devotee. "Roll With You," Reed's seamless debut for Somerville's Q Division label, plays like a horn-soaked, groove-stoked visitation from beyond, and his timing couldn't be better. Thanks to Amy Winehouse and the wave of retro-minded pop singers scaling the charts in her wake, soul music is au courant. Reed is the most authentic of all the young revivalists - a plus or a minus, depending on whether you prefer your throwbacks unadulterated or freshened up. His songs are flawless paeans (originals all), among them funkalicious "The Satisfier" (James Brown is shimmying in his grave), "Am I Wasting My Time" (an Otis Redding ringer), and the romantic title track, where Sam Cooke's ghost lives. Reed did time in Mississippi Delta juke joints and at a South Side Chicago church run by a former Chess Records artist-turned-minister, which doesn't entirely explain how a nice Jewish boy wound up sounding like a seasoned black shouter. But kneeling at the altar paid off in genuine feel, and backed by the tight, tasty stylings of the True Loves, Reed has found a pitch-perfect niche in a backward-looking musical moment. [Joan Anderman]