Coming Home

Editors’ Notes Leon Bridges’ retro-soul debut is so impressively dead-on you might wonder where he parked his time machine. Channeling the buttoned-up charm of Sam Cooke and the mellower side of Otis Redding (as well as contemporary throwbacks like Raphael Saadiq), Coming Home captures a moment in the early '60s when gospel met blues and blossomed into soul. It was the period-perfect title track that helped Bridges gain an audience beyond his Texas hometown, but the swaying dedication to his mother, “Lisa Sawyer,” is every bit as lovely.