Nostalgia has been a steady part of Leon Bridges’ appeal since his incredible rise began nearly 10 years ago. The Fort Worth native broke into the national consciousness with his sleek vintage fashions and the Sam Cooke-era doo-wop of Coming Home in 2015. On that debut album, he leaned heavily into ’50s-style soda shop sing-alongs, even adopting some of the slightly overdriven ribbon mic sound of the time for the album’s recording, which helped illustrate an image of a young man bearing a very old sold.
Though he quickly departed from those initial post-war Bakelite-pressed sonics, spreading out comfortably into his own blend of modern R&B, pop, and jazz-tinged soul, Bridges has retained an undefinable worn-in and timeless quality to his music that has always seemed essential to his oeuvre. On his latest studio album, that thread of nostalgia which has always pervaded his aesthetic — via vintage high-fashion threads, rolled-off guitar and keyboard tones, warm production, and his honey-smooth vocals — has been drawn from his life instead of some specific bygone time period.
On Leon, Bridges offers a sentimental and self-reflective collection of vibey, laidback soul tracks which functions both as a memoir of sorts as well as a love letter to his hometown. In a recent post, Bridges described his fourth studio album as a “journey through my childhood memories and all the things I hold dear in this life — my roots, my upbringing, family, simple times and hard times, and everything about Texas that makes home so special to me.”
A listen confirms Bridges’ heartfelt inspiration and how successfully he manages to do it justice. Across the 13 tracks, from the slow keyboard swell of opener “When a Man Cries” to the cascading orchestral peak of closer “God Loves Everyone,” Bridges takes the listener through a series of tender vignettes and emotional set pieces that paint a vivid picture of a man and the myriad pieces he’s composed of more effectively than any work he’s done prior.
Photo courtesy of Jack Bool.
To date, Bridges’ image, with his enviably cool retro flash, has seemingly carried equal weight to the man as an artist. Leon removes the artifice and leaves bare an earnest and honest portrayal of the real person residing behind the visage. We follow along with him as he recounts summer days in Trinity Park and the innocence of playing video games as a child on “Panther City,” his first and his most timeless loves on “Ain’t Got Nothing on You,” and a yearning for the uncomplicated life of youth on “Simplify.”
Whereas 2018’s Good Thing was about musical exploration after a potentially pigeon-holing first effort and 2021’s Gold-Diggers Sound served up an aurum-tinged sexual strut, Leon — musically — stands as maturely as the perspective of its subject matter. There’s a stripped-down sense to the production of Ian Fitchuk (Kacey Musgraves, Maggie Rogers) and Daniel Tashian (Tenille Townes, Rainbow Kitten Surprise), with a focus on simple analog instruments like piano, acoustic guitar, and plaintive pedal steel, supported by lush Motown string beds. It seems likely that the location of El Desierto Studios just outside of Mexico, where tracking was done, found its way into some of the songs as both “Laredo” and Peaceful Place,” each released as singles to tease the record last month, contain some Latin-esque rhythmic stylings.
Though containing no so-called “bangers” (the tone of the record is almost exclusively relaxed), the record makes up for a lack of danceable beats with an ocean of emotional weight that the sparse (by comparison) instrumentation bears with the stability of a Florentine buttress, holding high Bridges’ earnest vocal delivery. Never one to strut with his understated singing style, always avoiding unnecessary flourish, there’s a directness with which he sings on this record that adds to its sincerity. Leon is an achievement of an album that harks to the precocious and venerable timelessness that has always been the underlying bedrock of Bridges’ music. It belies a wisdom that usually comes from looking back on a decades-long career, not one that hasn’t even crossed the 10-year threshold. It is his best work yet.
To celebrate the release of the album, Bridges has been touring smaller, hand-picked listening rooms to highlight the intimacy of Leon. However, a comfy, varnished-brass theater would not hold his highly anticipated homecoming that will conclude on November 15. The finale of his tour will be at Dickies Arena and will promise the largest crowd he’s ever played to in the town he still calls home. (At least half of the year. The other half is spent in L.A.) Support for the show will be provided by the enthralling desert-soundtrack guitar instrumentation of Hermanos Gutiérrez and a fellow Texas native, classic country revivalist Charlie Crockett.
Leon Bridges
7pm Fri, Nov 15, w/Hermanos Gutiérrez and Charlie Crockett at Dickies Arena, 1911 Montgomery St, FW. $46.50+. 817-402-9000.
