Artists & Bands

Leon Bridges tunes

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Not just a Sam Cooke wannabe!

I remember the first time I heard Leon Bridges. It wasn’t his first album, Coming Home (2015), which is strange as it did well and was even nominated for Best R&B Album in 2016.

It was in 2018 when, for some reason, one of his tunes from his second album, Good Thing, popped up and I instantly liked it. I even became obsessed with it for a few months.

Songs such as Bad Bad News, Forgive You, Beyond, and If It Feels Good (Then It Must Be) are really great. I spoke to people around me about Leon, but nobody had heard of him, and I didn’t hear his tunes on the radio. I started thinking there must be something wrong with his marketing because this guy is so great!

Later, I checked out his debut album. It’s also good but sonically very different. There’s a clear Sam Cooke influence, perhaps too strong. It feels a bit like when Ray Charles started out and he just sounded too much like Nat King Cole.

His second album had more of a pop production, which I felt suited his songwriting better. It feels more genuine.

Fast forward a few years, and tunes from his first album are starting to appear in ads, and that second album seems to have slowly entered people’s world. I’ve started hearing it played at various events now, even having Beyond requested as a first dance recently.

In 2021, a third album was released, Gold-Diggers Sound. This one doesn’t feel as strong as the previous two releases, or maybe I’m just still stuck on that 2018 release!