Maybe it’s the lovelorn lyrics about a man who misses his girl and loves his momma. Or the speaker-rattling reverb. Or, above all else, that voice: effortlessly crisp, honey sweet, tap-dancing across a set of impeccably strung vocal cords. But at a time when every other musician breaking onto the scene spits bars or drops beats, we can’t help but assume that 26-year-old Fort Worth native Leon Bridges arrived in a time machine from a 1957 episode of American Bandstand.
His genre-appropriate style—high-waist pants, collared shirts, freshly shined shoes—only furthers the time-warp effect. Back home, he’s a bit of a mystery, too. “To see a young black man, especially in Texas, with his pants all the way up to his nipples and shirt tucked in...it’s weird in certain circles,” Bridges says proudly, defiantly. “Round town, we call it ‘getting GQ.’ The ladies love it!”
They also love his tunes, along with droves of people like us who didn’t realize we missed such simple R&B. Bridges’s debut, Coming Home, dropped in June, and his first major U.S. tour begins in October. As of this writing, more than half the shows are sold out, proving that soul’s not dead, it was just waiting for the right voice.
