Leon Bridges: Coming Home [COLUMBIA]

Why you'll love it

Coming Home sounds like a lost 1960s soul record, but it's the 2015 debut of a young Texan who used to wash dishes. It went Top 10 in the US and earned a Grammy nomination for Best R&B Album.

This edition

• Columbia pressing
• Produced by Niles City Sound

About the album

Leon Bridges was a dishwasher in Fort Worth, Texas, playing open mics on the side, when a couple of musicians from the band White Denim heard him and offered to record him. They cut his songs on vintage gear at their Niles City Sound studio, and the demo of "Coming Home" went viral almost overnight.

The album that followed is a love letter to Sam Cooke and Otis Redding: warm horns, tremolo guitar, doo-wop backing vocals and Bridges' smooth, honey-dipped voice. "Coming Home" and "Smooth Sailin'" swing, "Lisa Sawyer" is a tender tribute to his mother, and the closing "River" is a hushed, gospel-tinged showstopper that's been in countless films and shows since.

Also at Kops: more Leon Bridges on vinyl · browse 70s Soul On Up

Tracklist

Listen

On Columbia, first out in 2015.