<\/p>\n
“I’m not saying I can hold a candle to any soul musician from the ’50s and ’60s,” Bridges says, “but I want to carry the torch.\u201d<\/i>
\u2013 leonbridges.com<\/p>\n
If Leon Bridges was nothing but a gimmick\u2014a guy who channels the sound of vintage soul music like he just stepped out of a time machine fresh from a session with Sam Cooke in 1962\u2014that wouldn\u2019t be enough. But the sound, as meticulously fashioned as it is, is just a frame for the stories being told. What makes Leon Bridges exceptional is the songs he writes\u2014insightful, poetic and deeply felt\u2014and the way he sings them: like he might never get the chance to again. <\/p>\n
He holds nothing back, and that\u2019s what makes his debut disc, Coming Home<\/i>, something special. Produced by Niles City Sound, whose principals Austin Jenkins, Joshua Block and Chris Vivion receive co-writing credits with Bridges on these songs, this album delivers a purity of vision that\u2019s rare today: ten tracks of music that\u2019s both a remarkable recreation of a familiar sound, and a completely unique and personal artistic statement.<\/p>\n
From the start of the opening title track, every detail is perfect. The gently swaying, echoey rhythm section, heavy on the cymbals, Bridges chanting \u201cOo-oo-oo\u201d before coming in with \u201cBaby, baby, baby \/ I\u2019m coming home to your tender sweet loving \/ You\u2019re my one and only one \/ The world leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, girl \/ You\u2019re the only one that I want \/ Wanna be your ride\u2026\u201d It\u2019s absolutely masterful. Here Bridges earnestly pleads; on the subsequent \u201cBetter Man\u201d he adds a measure of urgency\u2014\u201cWhat can I do to get back to your heart? \/ I\u2019d swim the Mississippi River if you would give me another start\u201d\u2014even as the four-woman-strong background chorus demurely sings \u201cDoo-wop, doo-wop.\u201d<\/p>\n
The juxtaposition of vintage and modern elements only serves to amplify the impact of these songs. \u201cBrown Skin Girl\u201d references a \u201cpolka dot dress\u201d and things being \u201cgroovy\u201d even as it\u2019s explicitly mentioning race in a lyric that would surely have been whitewashed back in the day to appeal to \u201cmainstream\u201d (i.e. white) listeners. \u201cSmooth Sailin\u2019\u201d pushes the tempo a bit, featuring sweet call-and-answer vocals, a throaty baritone sax and a tidal, surging r&b foundation designed to get your hips shaking as Bridges works his magic: \u201cSweet pretty baby, won\u2019t you be my lady.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the first four tracks focus on romance, \u201cShine\u201d and subsequent tracks find Bridges delving deeply into the gospel element of his musical heritage. \u201cLord, don\u2019t remember my sins from my youth\u201d begins this very pretty, slow-burning ballad that\u2019s simultaneously rich with passion and also a prayer for absolution. Next up, \u201cLisa Sawyer\u201d frames a biographical narrative about his mother\u2019s conversion with sax and organ against a gentle rhythm section as the background vocalists decorate the high end with a chant of \u201cBop-bop, bop-bop.\u201d \u201cFlowers\u201d takes a different musical tack, an upbeat number with a hint of boogie and more big sax, but the message remains the same: \u201cOver the hill, salvation rests in the sun \/ Eternity baby, so won\u2019t you come?\u201d <\/p>\n
In the home stretch, \u201cPull Away\u201d and \u201cTwistin\u2019 & Groovin\u2019\u201d turn back to romance. The first is a soul ballad fresh out of 1959, with Bridges crooning against a backdrop of piano and organ and doing some playful call-and-answer with the background chorus. Then \u201cTwistin\u2019\u201d turns up the tempo for a steady-on finger-snapper about a lonely guy at a dancehall looking for a new lady to give him a chance.<\/p>\n
Plenty of the aforementioned tunes are impressive in their own ways, but it\u2019s closer \u201cRiver\u201d that really seals the deal. It\u2019s a baptism song whose lyric feels ancient and timeless, like an African American spiritual placed inside a classic soul music frame. The distant, echoey sound of the tambourine sends chills as a single acoustic guitar strums and Bridges sings \u201cThere\u2019s blood on my hands and my lips are unclean \/ In my darkness I remember, Momma\u2019s words recur to me \/ Surrender to the good Lord and he\u2019ll wipe your slate clean \/ Take me to your river, I wanna go.\u201d It\u2019s one of the purest gospel songs I\u2019ve ever heard.<\/p>\n
What Bridges and his production team have done is go back to the originals, the Sam Cookes and Jackie Wilsons, and figure out down to the smallest detail both what made them tick and what made them special, and then employ that style to craft original music. The result is an album that feels like it exists inside of its own unique time and space and world. In every sense of the word, Leon Bridges\u2019 debut album Coming Home<\/i> is a revelation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":33231,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[10039],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-45040","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-leon-bridges","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45040"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=45040"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=45040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}