Nearly a decade after Leon Bridges released his star-making debut album, Coming Home, he keeps returning to his local digs.
On his fourth album, Leon (due out Oct. 4), the Fort Worth singer-songwriter declares his love for “springtime on the Trinity River.” “Laredo” is about falling for a border-town girl, but he shot the video in downtown Fort Worth, slow-dancing next to a vintage white Cadillac. In August, he shot another video at Record Town, one of his old haunts.
“I’m excited to share these stories about my home, about nostalgia, about my upbringing, about where I’m from,” reads a recent Instagram post by Bridges, who lived in Los Angeles for nearly two years while recording his previous album.
“It’s important to keep Fort Worth my home, because there’s a sense of familiarity here,” he told The Dallas Morning News in 2021, after his stint in Hollywood. “The mentality of people is really refreshing compared to L.A., where it’s a little more pretentious and superficial.”
Leon isn’t strictly a Texas album. The hypnotic single “Peaceful Place” rides on an Afro-Latin groove, and Bridges shot the video in and around Mexico City, floating in a hot air balloon past an Aztec pyramid in one scene.
While his last album, Gold-Diggers Sound (2021), leaned into jazz and electronic music, Leon doesn’t shy away from R&B, especially in “Laredo,” a song with a suave flute solo. Yet he’s not banking on airplay from R&B stations.
“I felt like I’ve always been a lone wolf in the industry. Yes, my music is under the umbrella of R&B, but … I was never fully embraced in that community,” he said recently on The Zane Lowe Show.
The record was produced by Ian Fitchuk, who co-produced recent albums by Maggie Rogers and Kacey Musgraves. Bridges debuted new songs in Austin this week during a three-night stand at the Continental Club, a warm-up for his big gig Oct. 4 at Austin City Limits Music Festival. On Nov. 15, he’ll play his largest hometown show yet at Dickies Arena, with help from another globe-trotting Texan, singer Charley Crockett.
