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Leon Bridges is not the second-coming of Sam Cooke. That's hardly an insult, of course. Like NBA fans still digging up stats to prove Kobe Bryant isn't as good as Michael Jordan, just putting them together in the same sentence is a compliment. But if Bridges—who sold out the Crystal Ballroom on Nov. 4, three months after emerging as the breakout artist at this year's Pickathon—truly wants to make a run for the retro-soul mantle, someone should slip him a copy of Cooke's Live at the Harlem Square Club. If you haven't heard it yourself, it's the record where R&B's consummate gentleman transforms into a rabid animal. His velvet voice has gone hoarse, making him sound more like James Brown than Mr. Sentimental Reasons. He screams and adlibs and blurts out shit like, "I'm sick, but it ain't that leukemia! HA HA HA!!!" It's one of the great live albums of all-time, because it shows how the stage can change even the most polite and mannered performers.
At this point in his young career, though, mannered politeness is all Bridges seems to know. At the Crystal, wearing a tuxedo and playing against a furrowed red curtain seemingly stripped from the stage at the Copacabana, the 26-year-old from Fort Worth, Texas, stuck to the script of his debut album, Coming Home, which posits him as a musical Encino Man, frozen in the late '50s and thawed out in present day. It's a seamless evocation of the post-doo-wop, pre-soul moment. In Portland, backed by a deft seven-piece band, Bridges proved it's not just studio trickery. His voice really is that smooth, and when he promises to "swim the Mississippi River" to get back in his girl's good graces—a sentiment you're certainly not going to hear from Chris Brown or the Weeknd—you believe him. He really is that nice.
But nice isn't always compelling to watch. For most of his brisk hour-long set, Bridges looked like a kid in church trying not to upset his grandparents. His expression, which mostly read as blank concentration, hardly shifted. He danced, but mostly through his wrists, and kept within a two-foot radius of the mic stand at all times. Between songs, he would banter, about getting a haircut and the cold Portland air, but it came out mumbly and indistinct. It's not that he lacks charisma—there's something strangely magnetic about his wholesomeness—and when a song required a certain reserve, such as the unadorned hymnal "River," his unwavering placidity turned into something powerful. But there's a sense that perhaps he's being too honest to the material—that in striving for authenticity, he's setting himself back. Here's hoping the next time he comes through town (his return engagement is already set for May, at the Schnitz), he's feeling a little sick…and I ain't talking about that leukemia.
All photos by Emily Joan Greene.
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Willamette Week
