Bio:
Grammy Award winner Leon Bridges' first strides as a soul inspired R&B artist prompted comparisons to legends like Sam Cooke and Otis Redding, but he quickly came into his own as a Top Ten, Grammy Award winning, globally touring artist.
The 28 year old singer, songwriter honed his talent performing in and around his native Fort Worth, Texas, at open mic nights. Leon attracted industry attention when the venerable music and culture site Gorilla-vs-Bear posted uploads of analog recordings produced by Niles City Sound’s Josh Block and Austin Jenkins. Signed to Columbia Records, Bridges' first singles, including a rich ballad written about his mother, appeared in February 2015 with a sound that evoked classic R&B and soul.
His debut album, Coming Home, followed four months later. It debuted at number six on the Billboard 200 and was nominated for two Grammys: Best R&B Album & Best Music Video.
Bridges kept busy with appearances across the world including but not limited to performing at The White House for President Obama, the Library of Congress, the Museum Of Modern Art Film Benefit - A Tribute To Tom Hanks and Tom Ford New York Fashion Week event. He opened for the Rolling Stones in Europe and announced opening dates on the Harry Styles tour in South America. Leon also penned the main track for Concussion starring Will Smith and had a huge sync with his track “River” on Reese Witherspoon’s hit HBO series Big Little Lies.
In 2016 and 2017, Bridges' was active as a performer and collaborator. In addition to extensive tours and festivals, he co-wrote and was featured on Macklemore & Ryan Lewis' "Kevin," Nick Waterhouse's "Katchi," and Kacey Musgraves' "Present Without a Bow." Additionally, he recorded "On My Own" with Lecrae and connected twice with Gary Clark, Jr., for Live North America 2016 and on a collaborative cover of Neil Young's "Ohio." Work with Aminé and ODESZA was also out by the end of 2017. Early the following year, Coming Home was certified gold by the RIAA. Shortly thereafter, Bridges released "Bet Ain't Worth the Hand", "Bad Bad News" and “Beyond” the first offerings off his contemporary and stylistically broader second album, Good Thing, released in May 2018. Critics heralded Good Thing for its modern R&B sound, lush production and joyous songwriting. Leon, who has been nominated for four Grammy Awards, took home his first ever win for Best Traditional R&B performance for “Bet Ain’t Worth the Hand”.
Contact Information
Management/Booking:
MANAGEMENT
Jonathan Eshak & Zeke Hutchins [email protected]
The Recôncavo is an almost invisible center-of-gravity. Circumscribing the Bay of All Saints, this region was landing for more enslaved human beings than any other such throughout all of human history. Not unrelated, it is also birthplace of some of the most physically & spiritually uplifting music ever made. —Sparrow
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers: Personal recording engineer for Prince, inc. "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"... Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory
I'm Pardal here in Brazil (that's "Sparrow" in English). The deep roots of this project are in Manhattan, where Allen Klein (managed the Beatles and The Rolling Stones) called me about royalties for the estate of Sam Cooke... where Jerry Ragovoy (co-wrote Time is On My Side, sung by the Stones; Piece of My Heart, Janis Joplin of course; and Pata Pata, sung by the great Miriam Makeba) called me looking for unpaid royalties... where I did contract and licensing for Carlinhos Brown's participation on Bahia Black with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock...
...where I rescued unpaid royalties for Aretha Franklin (from Atlantic Records), Barbra Streisand (from CBS Records), Led Zeppelin, Mongo Santamaria, Gilberto Gil, Astrud Gilberto, Airto Moreira, Jim Hall, Wah Wah Watson (Melvin Ragin), Ray Barretto, Philip Glass, Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd for his interest in Bob Marley compositions, Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam and others...
...where I worked with Earl "Speedo" Carroll of the Cadillacs (who went from doo-wopping as a kid on Harlem streetcorners to top of the charts to working as a janitor at P.S. 87 in Manhattan without ever losing what it was that made him special in the first place), and with Jake and Zeke Carey of The Flamingos (I Only Have Eyes for You)... stuff like that.
Yeah this is Bob's first record contract, made with Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd of Studio One and co-signed by his aunt because he was under 21. I took it to Black Rock to argue with CBS' lawyers about the royalties they didn't want to pay. They paid.
MATRIX MUSICAL
The Matrix was built below among some of the world's most powerfully moving music, some of it made by people barely known beyond village borders. Or in the case of Sodré, his anthem A MASSA — a paean to Brazil's poor ("our pain is the pain of a timid boy, a calf stepped on...") — having blasted from every radio between the Amazon and Brazil's industrial south, before he was silenced. (that's me left, with David Dye & Kim Junod for U.S. National Public Radio) ... The Matrix started with Sodré, with João do Boi, with Roberto Mendes, with Bule Bule, with Roque Ferreira... music rooted in the sugarcane plantations of Bahia. Hence our logo (a cane cutter).