{"id":478157,"date":"2026-10-27T13:18:20","date_gmt":"2026-10-27T13:18:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/478157\/"},"modified":"2026-10-27T13:18:20","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T13:18:20","slug":"fort-worth-soul-singer-releases-one-of-the-years-best-local-albums","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/478157\/","title":{"rendered":"Fort Worth soul singer releases one of the year\u2019s best local albums"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Blue-eyed soul singers never go out of style, as evidenced by chart-topper <a data-ylk=\"slk:Teddy Swims;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/arts-entertainment\/music\/2025\/07\/30\/for-teddy-swims-overnight-success-was-years-in-the-making\/\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Teddy Swims<\/a>. The latest such crooner with golden pipes worth hearing is <a data-ylk=\"slk:Fort Worth;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/topic\/fort-worth\/\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Fort Worth<\/a>&#8216;s Michael Lee, who releases his new album, &#8220;Michael Lee &amp; the Wartime Limousine,&#8221; on Oct. 30.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">One of the year&#8217;s best local albums, it&#8217;s steeped in vintage Motown and Stax sounds, with finger-snapping horns and female backing vocals. &#8220;Starlight&#8221; and &#8220;Living High&#8221; venture into the Temptations&#8217; psychedelic-soul turf, but Lee&#8217;s gritty singing and biting blues-rock guitar solos leave a distinct imprint. He&#8217;s also got a way with words: &#8220;Caught It&#8221; recounts his real-life pandemic romance, in which a two-week quarantine led to wedding bells.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">An underage Lee learned his craft by sneaking into the Hole in the Wall on Harry Hines Boulevard to watch local blues masters like <a data-ylk=\"slk:Lucky Peterson;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/arts-entertainment\/music\/2020\/05\/18\/dallas-blues-legend-lucky-peterson-dies\/\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Lucky Peterson<\/a> and Andrew &#8220;Jr. Boy&#8221; Jones. In 2018, he made it all the way to NBC&#8217;s &#8220;The Voice,&#8221; impressing Jennifer Hudson and other coaches with his version of B.B. King&#8217;s &#8220;The Thrill Is Gone.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Lee&#8217;s latest supporting cast hails from closer to home. The album was produced by <a data-ylk=\"slk:the Silver Skylarks;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/arts-entertainment\/music\/2024\/06\/16\/the-silver-skylarks-fuse-60s-soul-70s-funk-and-90s-hip-hop-into-one-cohesive-groove\/\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">the Silver Skylarks<\/a>, the creative duo of Jeff &#8220;Skin&#8221; Wade and Danny Balis, who also plays bass throughout. Another Dallas veteran, Chad Stockslager, plays keyboards and co-wrote &#8220;Lesser Than a Better Man.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;Michael Lee &amp; the Wartime Limousine&#8221; was recorded at Fort Worth&#8217;s Niles City Sound, where <a data-ylk=\"slk:Leon Bridges;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/topic\/leon-bridges\/\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Leon Bridges<\/a> got his career rolling more than a decade ago.<\/p>\n<p>Subscribe<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a data-ylk=\"slk:Sign up for the Morning Roundup, a free newsletter delivering the latest North Texas news each morning.;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/newsletters\/morning-roundup\/?utm_source=yahoo&amp;utm_medium=cta&amp;utm_campaign=textlink\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Sign up for the Morning Roundup, a free newsletter delivering the latest North Texas news each morning.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">This article originally published at <a data-ylk=\"slk:Fort Worth soul singer releases one of the year&#039;s best local albums;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/arts-entertainment\/music\/article\/michael-lee-wartime-limousine-fort-worth-singer-22486219.php?utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=yahoo_syndication\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Fort Worth soul singer releases one of the year&#8217;s best local albums<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Blue-eyed soul singers never go out of style, as evidenced by chart-topper Teddy Swims. The latest such crooner&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":478158,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-478157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-headlines","tag-fort-worth-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}