Heart And Soul With Leon Bridges

Texas crooner Leon Bridges went from dishwasher to musical superstar practically overnight.

- Eric Spitzagel, photographs by Luis Sanchis

TWO THINGS happened this year that made soul singer Leon Bridges realize his life had changed dramatically. During a headlining show this past summer in San Francisco, the crooner could barely hear his voice over the sold-out crowd, who were singing along with every tune.

“It freaked me out,” he says. “It feels like I just wrote those lyrics. And now people know all the words?”

The second headspinning moment took place at his 26th-birthday party, also this summer, at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland. One of the guests was Quincy Jones. “He was telling me stories about working with a 16-year-old Ray Charles,” Bridges says. “And I was like, What is my life right now? How did I get here? Wasn’t I just washing dishes, like, yesterday?”