About a year ago, while taking meetings with record companies interested in releasing his debut album, Leon Bridges was working as a dishwasher in Fort Worth, Texas. Last December, after signing with Columbia Records — home to artists such as Beyonce and Bruce Springsteen — he was finally able to retire from the restaurant business.
“That was a wild scene for me to see, to go from washing dishes to signing with a label with that kind of history,” Bridges says. “It all happened so fast, it’s still hard to wrap my mind around it.”
The singer’s first album, “Coming Home” (Columbia), debuted at No. 6 on the pop chart in June and won acclaim for his soul-streaked vocals and songwriting. After a buzz-building series of performances earlier this year at the South by Southwest Music Conference in Austin, Texas, and at undersized clubs, he’s now playing festivals and theaters.
The singer was born 26 years ago in Atlanta but grew up in Texas. His parents split when he was a child, and he didn’t get involved in music until he attended a community college in Fort Worth. He was more interested in dance and possibly pursuing a career in choreography when he began hanging out between classes with a keyboard-playing fellow student.
“I knew I had a little bit of a voice, and meeting this guy who was really passionate about music sparked everything,” he says. “Because of that, I bought a guitar. I was determined to write my own songs and perform them in public.”
He began working out his sound at open mic nights in Texas, where his R&B-leaning songs distinguished him from other singer-songwriters. His songwriting was influenced by childhood heroes such as Usher and Genuine, and he occasionally sang over hip-hop instrumentals on his iPod. But as he began writing more on guitar and drawing comparisons to artists such as Sam Cooke and Curtis Mayfield, he started to investigate classic soul and R&B. “The songwriting and the sound really struck a chord with me,” he says. “I started writing more and more in that vein.”
One song in particular set him on his new path, “Lisa Sawyer,” about his mother’s journey as a young woman. “I was around a lot of singer-songwriters on the open mic scene in Fort Worth, and those guys inspired me to be more of a songwriter,” he says. “I wanted to make music based on classic R&B and soul, but with lyrics that were more personal.”
A pair of blue jeans helped get Bridges into a recording studio. One night at a Fort Worth bar, he was introduced to a guy who shared his affinity for a particular style of Wranglers. They also casually discussed music, and later Bridges was informed that the gent he’d just met was Austin Jenkins of the veteran Austin band White Denim. After his new friend caught a Bridges performance soon after, Jenkins suggested they collaborate on a recording.
“A lot of people had offered me that, but they didn’t follow through,” Bridges says. “A week later, Austin and I were in the studio,” a new Fort Worth venture run by Jenkins, bandmate Joshua Block and tour manager Chris Vivion.
Jenkins, Block and Vivion “took all my songs that started on guitar and turned them into what you hear now,” the singer says, recording on vintage equipment and aiming for a sound that echoed the retro vibe of veteran singers such as Sharon Jones and Charles Bradley without mimicking it. After the album was completed, Bridges said his managers shopped it as a “take it or leave it” project and Columbia agreed to put it out without any additional window dressing.
The production underlines Bridges’ understated style, which sets him apart from other retro artists.
“Having all the tags of retro soul, it’s almost made me question myself and what I do,” he says. “There will definitely be some surprises for people as I move on. I’m a soul artist, but I like to incorporate country music – I’m talking about the ‘good’ country. You don’t see revival people doing that. There’s the Daptone (soul label) thing, which is beautiful and great, but I want to do something different. I’m not a big shouting preacher man on stage, I’m a songwriter, and I want to keep going in that direction. I’m excited for people to hear my next album. Truthfully I’m not a deep thinker, I’m a simple person, but I’m pushing myself to go deeper.”
If you go
Leon Bridges will perform Nov. 2 at the Neptune Theatre. Tickets to see the singer who is reminding many of Sam Cooke are $18.50 and can be purchased at stgpresents.org or call 877-784-4849.
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