Review: Leon Bridges, warm and smoky

The 21st century has not been devoid of soul crooning smoothies whose sartorial sharpness is as cutting and crucial as the Motown elite that their sound emulates. One look at Motor City-inspired R&B doyen Raphael Saadiq and 2008's The Way I See It proves as much.

Fort Worth's Leon Bridges is cut from the same cloth - albeit with rougher-hewn material, as his voice shares similarities to Sam Cooke's and Marvin Gaye's silken coo with an occasional understated scratchiness. His songs, whether his debut's preponderance of wrenching ballads or its emotive heart-racers, are retro-soul without being dated and cautious. Bridges has showed off his skills on one of 2015's best albums, Coming Home, as well as at Saturday night's Union Transfer show, where he warmed up the season's first near-freezing temperatures with choked-up, slow-grooving soul and musicianship as tight as his dark suit.

It was a smoky smolder rather than a blazing fire that Bridges & Co. offered, standing before a red velvet curtain. His deep rich voice made the easy, simple chorus of "Coming Home" - the call of "wanna be around, girl" - into an elegantly complex coil of cool with subtle oohs and ahhs. The Texan brought a taste of New Orleans to bear on heart-swelling songs about his mother's home ("Lisa Sawyer"), the "sweet little girl from the Ninth Ward" he recalled during the tipsy "Twistin' and Groovin'" and the Stax-ish smooch of "Mississippi Kisses."

Driven by a honking saxophone line and the femme keen of background vocals, Bridges' take on "Better Man" was as salty as "Pussyfootin' " was rough, blue and swinging. While the wedding-band sway of "Pull Away" gave Bridges a chance for straight-ahead sweet pillow talk, the slow, gentle blues of "Doris" and the gruff "Flowers" made way for vocals that spoke heartily to its rousing subjects of salvation and needs-so-strong.