Leon Bridges performs “Happiness Anytime” medley on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.”
Tag: Leon Bridges Gold-Diggers Sound
New Video: Leon Bridges Shares Strutting and Buoyant “Talk It Over”
Atlanta-born, Fort Worth, TX-raised singer/songwriter and musician Leon Bridges quickly established himself as one of America’s most exciting new artists with 2015’s platinum-certified, Grammy Award-nominated debut Coming Home, which featured breakout singles “Coming Home” and “River.” Bridges followed up with 2018’s critically applauded Good Thing, which saw him expanding upon his sonic panic while earning a Grammy Award-nomination for Best R&B Album and a Grammy Award for Best Traditional R&B Performance for “Bet Ain’t Worth the Hand.”
2021’s Gold-Diggers Sound was the acclaimed Atlanta-born, Fort Worth-based artist’s most adventurous album to date, and the album received critical applause while earning another Grammy Award-nomination for Best R&B Album. His most recent album, 2024’s Lean is an introspective effort inspired by his Texan roots and his artistic evolution.
Along with his solo work. he has collaborated with equally acclaimed act Khraungbin on two albums — 2020’s Texas Sun and 2022’s Texas Moon. Bridges who has earned six Grammy Award-nominations — three for Best R&B Album — and a Grammy Award-win, has also collaborated with an eclectic array of artists, including John Mayer, Kacey Musgraves, Robert Glasper, Terrace Martin, Gunna, The Avanlanches, Gary Clark, Jr. and Shaboozey, all of which showcase a remarkably versatile artist.
Adding to a rapidly growing profile, Bridges has a long-held reputation as a captivating live performer, who has made a run of the global concert and festival circuit, playing an increasing number of the world’s major festivals while making appearances on Saturday Night Live, NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert and Austin City Limits.
Bridges fourth album, the J Lloyd-Watson and Lydia Kitto-produced fifth album, Happiness Anytime is slated for a September 25, 2026 release through Columbia Records. Happiness Anytime reportedly sees the acclaimed Atlanta-born, Fort Worth-based artist returning to the warmth of his 2015 debut but while seeing the members of Jungle and Bridges’ signature sensibilities blending to create something entirely new — an expansive, borderless sound and approach that pushes the Grammy Award-winning artist into band new territory. The material reportedly echoes Fela Kuti, Paul Simon’s 1990 effort The Rhythm of The Saints and Jorge Ben without feeling referential. At its core, the album is reportedly boundary pushing while remaining unmistakably Leon Bridges, rooted in his imitable vocal, effortless charisma and melodic sensibilities.
The album was written and recorded across three fast and furious sessions with Lloyd-Watson and Kitto, a collaboration that can trace its origins to the trio repeatedly crossing paths across the global festival circuit. The trio decided to attempt a low-pressure writing session at Los Angeles-based Chaplin Recording Studios. Four days later, they ha come up with six songs — half of the completed album. Pino Palladino contributed bass during the sessions. The end result is a timeless body work of that feels unfussy and breezy — that they all hope will make the listener feel happiness anytime they play it.
“For me, happiness is not a feeling that you chase,” Bridges says,“I want this album to be something that lingers with people and lingers in people’s bones. There’s this feeling that we have to fix the problems of the world; you feel inadequate or it can be debilitating. My role is to be light. I hope that comes across with this album.” With Happiness Anytime, Bridges actively sets out with a desire to not only find joy but to find movement again.
Early in his career, Bridges was out in front dancing — and that was something that has wanted recently. He wanted to get back to making music to dance to, music to excise the stresses and frustrations of modern life, and to feel grounded in the rhythms of the present. Interestingly, over the summer, he has been introducing audiences to the new album with sets in Paris, Cannes, Los Angeles, Montreux Jazz Festival, London, Chicago and Outside Lands. And as he has being playing the new material live, he has unveiled “Leon Bridges Presents Happiness Anytime,” a reimagined stage production featuring a vinyl DJ, a horn section, three backing vocalists and Bridges out in front dancing and singing. Partly inspired by the communal spirt of Jamaican dancehall culture, the live set mirrors the album’s emphasis on movement — and on dancing your stresses and frustrations away for a bit.
In the meantime, Bridges recently released the second of three, 4-song EPs that will comprise the entire album. The second EP features album title track “Happiness Anytime,” “All Day All Night” feat. Lydia Kitto, “Fly Baby,” and “Talk It Over.” Featuring a strutting and jubilant, dance at the function groove beneath Bridges’ effortless, old-school soul-inspired delivery, “Talk It Over” is an ode to working things out and trying to make it all work that seemingly channels a blend of Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together,” and The Rhythm of the Saints while showcasing his unerring knack for catchy hooks.
Directed by D+Y and shot in Amsterdam, the accompanying video features Bridges and a multi-racial collection of beautiful dancers performing choreography by the Plue Agency. The video is centered around the album’s inspirations — movement, dancing and ebullient, infectious joy. And honestly, we could all use a lot more joy in our lives.
New Video: King Garbage Shares Soulful and Yearning “Busy On A Saturday Night”
Asheville, NC-based, Grammy Award-nominated production, songwriting and artist duo King Garbage — longtime friends Zach Cooper and Vic Dimotsis — have quiet put their imprint on pop, R&B and hip-hop through their work with The Weeknd, SZA, Ellie Goulding, Gallant, and even Billy Porter.
Cooper and Dimotsis made their debut as King Garbage with 2017’s Make It Sweat, an album that amassed millions of streams while receiving praise from Wonderland Magazine and Paste Magazine, who hailed the effort as a “grin-inducing collection of modern R&B and funk.”
The Asheville-based duo were extremely busy last year: They co-wrote “Sing,” which appeared on Jon Batiste‘s We Are and received eight Grammy Award nods, including Album of the Year. They also co-wrote “Sweeter,” feat. Terrace Martin, which appeared on Leon Bridges‘ Gold-Diggers Sound and received a Grammy nod for Best R&B Album.
In the middle of a prolific and wildly creative whirlwind, the duo turned to King Garbage, finding the perfect time to return. “It’s the right time, because it’s been about five years since the last album,” King Garbage’s Vic Dimotsis says. “We were lucky enough to have successes with Leon and Jon. In entertainment, it doesn’t hurt to have stuff to brag about during press releases,” he laughs. “We were also insanely lucky to have met Mr. Mike Patton and be given a chance to work with Ipecac. We had been drawn to Ipecac since we were young, so it seemed natural to respect the very source that had inspired us in the first place.”
The duo’s highly-anticipated sophomore album Heavy Metal Greasy Love is slated for an April 1, 2022 release through Ipecac Recordings. The album reportedly sees the duo breaking from the “rough and ruddy” vibe of their critically applauded debut and incorporating a rock ‘n’ roll spirit within the soul sphere they’re best known for.
“It’s a taste of retro without being a reproduction,” the duo’s Vic Dimotsis explains in press notes. “Love and life are very sweet, bitter, and heavy. You’re going to need big tires and a dense frame to cross the desert life can give you. The name felt right. The music is crispy, searing, spacious, sandy, and welded with perfect dimes at the seams. If you read anything about history, you can fall in love with its brutality. Nature is the most metal, always at war with itself and never asking ‘Why?’ when change comes. I believe if you live long enough, the crushing weight and terrible beauty begin to hold hands, and an appreciation is reached, or at least an understanding. This was the best way to describe the album as well as what we see in the world. Love, nature, past, present, and future.”
“If just one person would listen and come away with less fear, less rigidity, more human spirit, and a respect for the unknown, it’s worth it,” Dimotsis adds. “Maybe you think, ‘Well, if these bozos are taking chances and making what they want under the name King Garbage, what could I do with my idea or dreams?’”
Heavy Metal Greasy Love‘s third and latest single “Busy On A Saturday Night” is a slow-burning and atmospheric, Quiet Storm inspired soul ballad centered around shimmering, flamenco-like plucked guitar, strutting horns, jazz-like drumming skittering beats and a soulful and breathy falsetto vocal. But the acclaimed duo’s take on soul is a woozy and left field take that features elements of old-school rock, 60s and 70s soul and trap in a production that helps emphasize the narrator’s unfulfilled, aching yearning.
Interestingly, the song is inspired by a magnet that was on Vic’s Dimotsis’ great grandmother’s refrigerator. “It had a sweaty male stripper pictured on it and said, ‘Everything I want is either taken, or busy on a Saturday night,'” Dimotsis laughs. “Blurry as a memory on a slinky night out. A Tom Waits inspired roadster awaits high high heels on a sure fire adventure. Losing articles of clothing to the magnet of the pavement, the band plays on through a duct from another world, and our eyes blur from both lust and disgust. Such motion seems still, as the accelerator and brakes lose meaning. A quiet lonely brunch awakens us from a distant stare.”
The recently released video for “Busy On A Saturday Night” begins with something we’re all too familiar with — a Zoom conference, where its viewers are introduced to a choreographed dance routine, called “The Scorpion Dance” featuring four extremely similar women, who perform in different rooms with different lights. Clearly influenced by our weird and uncertain moment, the video evokes the deep longing for people — and the gatherings with people we couldn’t have during the bulk of the pandemic.