BACK ON TRACK

Up-and-coming soulster Abraham Alexander’s career hit “pause” with the pandemic, but he’s back, and unstoppable.

BY STEVE CARTER

If you haven’t yet made the musical acquaintance of Fort Worth’s Abraham Alexander, get ready to be knocked out. The soulful singer-songwriter is blowing up as we speak, hot off the road from his first major US tour, opening for his buddy and renowned musical associate, Leon Bridges. Alexander’s acclaimed self-titled EP was released in late 2019, but a certain pandemic rolled in shortly thereafter, putting a massive kibosh on his momentum. And while the pandemic may not have left the building entirely, Alexander’s hard at work, with a new album percolating, bookings filling up his calendar, and a burgeoning fan base of converts—it’s all coming together.

Abraham Alexander’s trajectory hasn’t been what you’d call typical. Born in Greece, his family moved to Texas when he was 11, settling in Arlington. After high school, he attended Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth, playing soccer there until an ACL injury took him out of sports completely. Enter music. Alexander’s thengirlfriend gave him a guitar and suggested he learn to play. “That was when I really started to fall in love with music, and really fell in love with the process,” he says. “And it’s strange that something that you’re not necessarily really too familiar with starts to unravel and explain things that you’d questioned your entire life—that’s exactly what happened when I started to play.”

Soon he was frequenting open mics, honing his chops, learning his craft. But a chance meeting in 2014 was the catalyst that charted his course. Walking past Fort Worth’s Niles City Sound, Alexander noticed a couple of guys loading amps into the studio and struck up a conversation; the two turned out to be the producers of Leon Bridges’ underway debut studio album, Coming Home, and they invited him back for the next day’s session. “They were like, ‘Hey, we’re going to be recording this individual, and if you can hum you should come out,’” Alexander recalls. “I thought ‘cool,’ and I came the next day, and I was like a kid in a candy store…all these amps, drums, gear, and all these people coming together to create something that was bigger than themselves—that was really inspiring.” He and Leon hit it off, and Bridges encouraged him to keep working the open mics. Besides Bridges, Alexander counts Bill Withers, Austin blues-rocker Gary Clark Jr., and John Legend among his other key inspirations. “I’d say those four really helped me find my voice and be as ‘myself’ as possible,” he assesses. “They lit a fire within me.”

Alexander’s 2019 eponymous EP is a masterfully produced, infectious marvel. Recorded at London’s hallowed Abbey Road Studios and tweaked and mastered in Texas, its four songs are a diverse intro to the breadth of his artistry. Lovers Game, the debut single, is a moody, first-person chronicle of the games people play when it’s all going south. 335 is a rockin’ paean to one of Alexander’s favorite axes, the Gibson ES-335; it’s equal parts guitar love, legacy, and “my-six-string-can-kick-your-ass” braggadocio. The mellow, introspective Stay finds Alexander pondering his voyage of selfdiscovery, torn between his love affair with London and his undying affection for the Lone Star State. Alexander wrote the anthemic America shortly after the 2016 Downtown Dallas sniper attack. Name-checking MLK and Rosa Parks, along with historical and biblical allusions, his impassioned vocal performance here is a standout, and the song’s questionings are as timely as today’s headlines.

Back in September, Alexander and his band hit the road as the opening act on Leon Bridges’ Gold-Diggers Sound fall tour—a month of dates, East Coast to West Coast. A major tour baptism by fire, Alexander dug it all. Working with his keyboard player and three background vocalists, all of whom appeared on his EP, he found that life on the road really agreed with him. “It was so much fun,” he says. “This is what we pray for, and we’re getting exactly that. There was a lot of impromptu within our set, but everyone was in accord, and it just flowed really well. The tour was such a blessing, and to be on the road with one of my best friends was such an honor.”

What’s Alexander’s next chapter? He’s been recording his follow-up with Grammy-nominated producer and songwriter Brad Cook (Bon Iver, Waxahatchee, Ani DiFranco), and he’s palpably excited. “We’re still putting bows on it, and dotting i’s and crossing t’s,” he explains. “It’s definitely going to be about a lot of the past, and everything that’s happened until now… it’s very personal, and me sharing my heart.” Some of the songs have taken shape with big production values, while others are stripped-down to their intimate essentials—it’s a full-range portrait of who he is musically. “I’m super grateful and elated with everything that’s been transpiring,” he enthuses. Catch this rising star—Abraham Alexander is on his way. P

Photograph by Hope Gray.