ATO Records

Bonus CD Tracklisting

Recorded Live at Arlyn Studios – Austin, TX

1. Black Moon Rising (Official Live Session)
2. Colors (Official Live Session)
3. Fire (Official Live Session)
4. Eleanor Rigby (Official Live Session

In 2017, Grammy Award-winning guitarist/producer Adrian Quesada had some down time between projects. He started writing some songs in his Austin studio, bringing in friends to play, with no particular plans for the results. After he had a few instrumentals down, he started asking around for a vocalist—he knew a lot of singers, but was looking for something different, someone who wasn’t already entrenched in the Austin scene.

Meantime, Eric Burton had recently made his way to Texas. He started busking at the Santa Monica pier, where he brought in a few hundred dollars a day and developed his performance skills. Burton travelled through the Western states before deciding to settle down in Austin—setting up his busking spot on a downtown street corner, at 6 th Street and Congress, for maximum exposure.

Weeks later, Quesada got a call out of the blue from someone named Eric Burton, who started singing over one of the tracks over the phone. “From the moment I heard him,” says Quesada, “I was all about it.”

The results of that inauspicious beginning can now be heard on the self-titled debut album from Black Pumas, the group that Quesada and Burton assembled, which has become one of the year’s most anticipated projects. “Like Portishead 25 years ago, it’s a debut so perfectly realised by the standards they’ve set themselves that you wonder what could possibly come next.” said The Guardian in their Ones To Watch piece. Elsewhere the album was nominated for a Grammy and their “Colors” live session amassed over 10 million views on youtube.

Quesada and Burton both return, over and over, to this almost mystical connection they felt from the beginning. It’s this sense of common purpose, of shared vision, that gives Black Pumas its focus and power—and that points to great things ahead.