Atlanta Soundtrack: Butch Walker plus, Nino Augustine and vintage Black Lips

Butch Walker, Elizabeth Cook and Katie Pruitt | “Walkin’ Back to Georgia” 

A trio of singers with Peach State ties has teamed up to cover this classic tune by the late singer-songwriter Jim Croce as a fundraiser for Georgia Music Foundation. Katie Pruitt grew up in the ATL burbs and Butch Walker’s family hails from Rome and Cartersville.

Elizabeth Cook has perhaps the most interesting connection of all. Though she was born in central Florida, her dad played upright bass in the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary prison band while serving his sentence for peddling moonshine. Once he was released, his musical experience inspired Cook’s parents to begin performing locally. And, yes, occasionally they’d bring their young daughter up onstage to help with a Hank Williams number. The rest is history.

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Nino Augustine | “La Boda”

To ring in the new year, Atlanta-based Panamanian singer/rapper Nino Augustine, who hails from the district of San Miguelito, has gifted us another smooth and sultry song that fuses different genres. Augustine’s distinct style draws from an array of global musical influences. 

At the beginning of last year, he told Rolling Stone, “I am constantly inspired by Black music, first in Latin America and the Caribbean, and later music directly from the continent. Watching that creative space has really sparked my own creativity.”

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Black Lips | “O Katrina!”

By the time they made their television debut on the talk show of a very young and spry-looking Conan O’Brien in 2007, this 1999-formed garage band out of Dunwoody had already weathered horrific tragedy. Just five years earlier, founding member and vocalist/guitarist Ben Eberbaugh was killed in a car accident at age 22.

The remaining original three carried on, Cole Alexander on vocals and guitar, Jared Swilley on bass and vocals, and drummer Joe Bradley. They were joined by guitarist Ian St. Pé, who started with the band in 2004 and once told a reporter that “if the crowd’s going crazy, we reciprocate.”

Our Vintage Track of the Week became immortalized not just from this live performance but as part of the seminal millennial-gen soundtrack to 2010’s Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Known for some boundary-pushing antics in their shows, the Black Lips are still performing to this day, albeit with a different-looking roster, releasing their latest album, Apocalypse Love, last October.