Cloves and Fedoras: Ty gives praise to Leon Bridges, the new voice of soul.

Cloves and Fedoras is Seed Sings reviews for little known pieces of pop culture (or older pieces).  Feel free to contact us with your own submissions of undiscovered gems that must be known. 

This is a follow up an earlier blog post about Leon Bridges.  You can find it here.

The sound of Sixties soul music is back today.

The sound comes in the form of a young man that was born thirty years after Stax Records and guys like Otis Redding and Rufus Thomas were making their strides in the soul music world. He's a twenty five year old music genius named Leon Bridges. His first album "Coming Home" was released today and it is so perfectly a throwback to the golden age of soul/R&B. This record is phenomenal. I didn't think I'd hear an album the rest of 2015 that I liked as much as Alabama Shakes "Sound and Color", but I've already listened to "Coming Home" two and a half times and I've got to say, it's now my album to beat for the year. Leon Bridges vocals are so damn smooth. I like to call this type of music "baby making music". He sounds like a much better version of Raphael Saadiq, and I love me some Raphael Saadiq. His guitar playing and his band are really tight. I seems like they've been perfecting this sound for sometime now, and they hit a grand slam. This may sound like it's from the Sixties because Leon Bridges asked to record on vintage equipment. He was taking a huge chance doing this because, in my opinion, you have to be one hundred percent committed to the equipment being used and you can't succumb to the technology today. That's got to be pretty difficult. But they did a wonderfully masterful job. It sounds like a recording from Stax in it's heyday. I've mentioned Leon Bridges on this site before, stating that I thought he would be the next great soul star, and today has not changed my mind at all. In fact, I feel even stronger about this prediction after listening to his record. He is going to be HUGE. There's ten songs on the album, with the longest being about four and a half minutes. This is great because that's how songs were back in the day. Singers back then only needed two to three minutes per track and they packed each song with as much soul as possible. Leon Bridges is no exception. He effortlessly flows from upbeat, drums and guitar heavy songs to slower songs with horns being his main background music. For example, for the more up beat songs, check out "Smooth Sailin" or "Twistin and Groovin". Both these songs are powered by Bridges vocals and his excellent guitar work. His drummer is superb with the groove of these songs too. With songs like "Shine" he lets the keyboardist take front stage and, accompanied by his vocals, they sing a sweet, slow soul song. My favorite song on the record is a slow song, which is very unlike me. But, "River" is a beautiful closer to this excellent album. It starts out with strumming from an acoustic guitar and soft vocals. It builds until the last minute of the song and it's just Leon Bridges and an all female chorus singing "take me to your river, I want to go". It's beautiful. I literally got goose bumps while listening. I hope his tour brings him to Saint Louis. I'd love to see him perform live. "Coming Home" by Leon Bridges is fantastic.

Go out and get this album as soon as possible.

Ty 

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for Seed Sing. He has made two babies, we do not know what kind of music was on. Follow him on twitter @tykulik.