from Kentucky to Georgia

I bookmarked this artist on Pandora before I knew anything about him, just heard this song: Beautiful Me. Then I read (see bio and review below) that he was born in Lexington and raised in Atlanta.

The smooth style of modern day soul singer Donnie is comparable to such other similar sounding artists as Macy Gray, Jill Scott, Seal, and Maxwell. Born in Lexington, Kentucky during the mid '70s, Donnie was raised in Atlanta, Georgia, and came from a very religious family (both of his parents were ministers). Singing for a choir at an early age, Donnie soon expanded his musical horizons, as he became influenced equally by such gospel artists as Walter Hawkins and Mahalia Jackson plus such soul/R n' B masters as Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, and Aretha Franklin. By the early 21st century, Donnie was signed to the Giant Step label, and issuing such singles and EP's as Holiday, Masterplan, Do You Know?, Excerpts from the Colored Section, and Our New National Anthem. The singer's anticipated full-length debut, the Colored Section, was released in November 2002. ~ Greg Prato

What a marvelously audacious introduction The Colored Section is. Emerging from the same Jazz Café-centered alternative Atlanta soul scene that nourished and nurtured fellow hippie-soul singer/songwriters like Joi and India.Arie all the way into the public consciousness, Donnie's first LP is a topical, unapologetically conscientious, and even righteously stinging declaration that, yes, can only be likened to the classic sociopolitical masterworks of spiritual heirs Donny Hathaway and especially Stevie Wonder. Songs like "Cloud 9" and "Wildlife," in fact, may be too indebted to genius-era Wonder -- the former with its wah-wah guitar and warm gusts of squelchy synth vibrato, the latter with its prominent clavinet and crisp harmonica ad-libs -- but are such stunning vintage impersonations that both easily could have slipped somewhere onto Innervisions.