Paolo Nutini

Paolo Nutini's star has risen so fast in the last year that you almost have to wonder who the kid has on the payroll. Even if Atlantic Records thinks it's found the Scottish James Blunt, Nutini doesn't need much more than a piano or an acoustic guitar to turn the cruelest skeptic into his 158,176th MySpace friend. His soulful delivery is less Van Morrison than blue-eyed Bob Marley, and his best single, "Rewind," chronicles a young barfly's reveries over a bedroom folk groove — if that bedroom looked out over a city illuminated by 1,000 radios playing "Caravan." If he ever pulls together a full album that catchy and calmly expansive (These Streets isn't quite it), Nutini — who will join Lyle Lovett, Shawn Colvin and Keb' Mo' at the Paramount to help KBCO celebrate its thirtieth anniversary — will be a worldwide threat.