3.5 stars out of 5
Taylor Hicks: Taylor Hicks
Arista | Sony BMG

He’s 30 years old. He’s got grey hair. His hero is Ray Charles. And he’s a seasoned musician and songwriter with two albums under his belt. Clearly, Taylor Hicks is not your average American Idol.

So it only follows that the Season 5 winner’s self-titled major-label debut is far from your average Idol disc. Or your average contemporary pop album, for that matter.

This dozen-song set is nothing short of a throwback: An old-fashioned southern pop-rock album cut with one producer, no superstar guests, and live studio musicians playing real instruments — including punchy horns, slide guitars, harmonica and the same Hammond organ used on Born to be Wild. Even better: Most of its songs were either written or inspired by Motown, Stax and Atlantic records legends like Smoky Robinson, Marvin Gaye and Brother Ray.

The Runaround is a hooky piece of horn-flecked ’80s soul-pop that bops to a modified, martial-style Bo Diddley beat and kinda reminds us of Billy Joel. Dream Myself Awake is a midtempo, arena-sized pop-rocker that totally sounds like Rob Thomas — partly because that’s who wrote it, and partly because this CD was produced by Matt Serletic, who has worked with Thomas, Santana and the like. The Right Place is a fragile, gospel-tinged piano ballad that sounds a bit like Randy Newman, but was actually written by Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance for Charles. Heaven Knows grooves to the left-hand piano line from What’d I Say and a bit of Smoky Robinson’s Ain’t That Peculiar.

Despite their stylistic variety, all those tunes — and most of the rest — go pretty well with Hicks’ raspy yet remarkably versatile voice, which can hit the pure high notes and growl in the gutter with equal success. There are a few missteps — the disc sags in the middle under the weight of a few too many unmemorable ballads, and his cover of Gaye’s Wherever I Lay My Hat has a little too much Rod Stewart in its DNA. But that’s a small price to pay for the most real and honest Idol album to date — and the first one clearly aimed at people whose musical tastes and CD collections go back further than Britney’s first CD.