Presented by KUTX, Mohawk & Margin Walker Bio: Sometimes, a mystical,
life-changing connection can be closer than you think.In 2017, Grammy
Award-winning guitarist/producer Adrian Quesada had recorded some
instrumentals in his Austin studio, and he started looking around for
a vocalist -- he knew a lot of singers, but he wanted something
different. He reached out to friends in Los Angeles, in London, but
nothing seemed right. Meantime, Eric Burton had recently made his way
to Texas. Born in the San Fernando Valley, he grew up in church and
then got heavily involved in musical theater. He started busking at
the Santa Monica pier, where he brought in a few hundred dollars a day
and developed his performance skills. Burton traveled through the
Western states before deciding to settle down in Austin -- setting up
his busking spot on a downtown street corner, at 6th Street and
Congress, for maximum exposure.A mutual friend mentioned Burton to
Quesada, saying that he was the best singer he had ever heard. The two
musicians connected, but Burton took a while to respond (“My friends
were like ‘Dude, you’re a mad man, you need to hit that guy
back!’“) Finally, he called Quesada, and started singing to one of
the tracks over the phone. “I loved his energy, his vibe, and I knew
it would be incredible on record,” he says. “From the moment I
heard him on the phone, 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. Described as
“Wu-Tang Clan meets James Brown” by KCRW, Black Pumas were the
winner of Best New Band at the 2019 Austin Music Awards.Quesada has a
storied reputation from playing in bands like Grupo Fantasma and
Brownout, accompanying artists from Prince to Daniel Johnston, and
producing such acclaimed projects as 2018’s Look at My Soul: The
Latin Shade Of Texas Soul. For the tracks that kicked off this
project, though, he had a different direction in mind. “I was
looking for somebody with their own identity,” says Quesada, “who
liked Neil Young as much as Sam Cooke.”Burton’s taste, range, and
experience proved to be exactly what Quesada was seeking. “We just
take to the same kind of music,” he says. “I listen to East Coast
hip-hop, old soul music, folk music. When Adrian sent me the songs, it
was like I had already heard them before. We were on the same
wavelength from the get-go.”The first day they got together in the
studio, they recorded the dusty funk that would become the Black
Pumas’ first two singles, “Black Moon Rising” and “Fire.”
Quesada had written the music for “Black Moon Rising” on the day
of the 2017 solar eclipse, and Burton took that concept and ran with
it. “Right away, the hair stood up on the back of my neck,” says
Quesada. “I knew, ‘This is it -- this is the guy.’”Burton
sensed the potential, as well. “When I saw that Adrian played with
Prince and had a Grammy,” he says, “that he was a serious,
respected artist, I knew that I would do my best not to squander that.
If you can do it on the street, for a long time, without making
yourself crazy, you can do it with a guy who’s won a Grammy.” The
duo also knew that they didn’t want their sound to be too retro or
imitative. “We didn’t want to just do throwback soul and pretend
that hip-hop never happened,” says Quesada, noting that it was
listening to Ghostface Killah that initially triggered him to start
writing this material. “It had to feel sincere coming from us. I
have a certain aesthetic in the studio, Eric has a voice that evokes a
certain era, but I don’t think we reference that too
directly.”“Adrian has had the time and the interest to really dive
into a specific sound, to recreate something he heard on a Motown
record,” adds Burton. “And because of that specific knowledge, he
provides an interesting sandbox for me, whose background is in
theater, to do something super-unorthodox -- to be an art student and
play with all the colors I have, but to put it on something that’s
more familiar to listeners’ ears.”With Black Pumas having evolved
from an idea to a session to an album, they decided to put a band
together and see how this music sounded live. They booked a residency
at C Boys (a sister venue to Austin’s famed Continental Club),
initially playing every Thursday for a month. “We only rehearsed
twice, we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into,” says
Quesada. “But with the first show, we knew it was unique, special --
the chemistry and fire were there immediately. And what Eric could do
as a frontman was like nothing I’d ever seen.”As word got out, the
C Boys shows turned into a local phenomenon (“the hottest party in
town,” according to the Austin American-Statesman), with lines
around the block despite the fact that the band had only released one
song. The reaction to the group’s recent South by Southwest
appearance helps explain the mania -- the Chicago Tribune called
Burton’s performance “a whirlwind of movement and gesture,”
while Rolling Stone, in naming Black Pumas “One Of The 30 Best Bands
We Saw In Austin,” wrote that “the hometown six-piece’s grooves
were funky in a thick, viscous way, oozing out in ambitious jams that
wandered into heady territory without meandering” and praising
Burton’s “tireless, charismatic energy.”The other, unexpected
result of the C Boys residency was that Burton presented more of his
own songs to help fill out the set, which led Black Pumas into new
territory. “Eric had all these other songs based on other styles,
going back into what he was doing when he was busking,” says
Quesada. “It was a real spark that we could huddle around him and
his songs, too, and get a real sense of what our sound was.”In fact,
the final song recorded for Black Pumas was “October 33,” a tense,
pleading ballad by Burton. “I didn’t feel like we had the right
last song,” says Quesada, “we needed something with more of Eric
on guitar. I said ‘I want to put down one more, do you have
anything?’ and he texted me back exactly what I was imagining -- it
was almost unspoken.”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.“It’s so seamless, it’s like we’re musical brothers to
some degree,” says Burton. “It feels so easy to meld together that
what’s most important for us now is to continue to look for new
sounds -- to make sure we’re feeding ourselves the knowledge to
continue to evolve. Every time we get together, it’s better than the
last time.”
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25/08/2019 Last update