Morning Aural: Nicole Atkins

Nicole Atkins first learned to play guitar after she unearthed an acoustic in her attic as a kid. “My parents were a little bit skeptical about me touching it at first becuase it had been Dominic’s,” she says. Dominic, he mother’s little brother, had been killed at age 13… The ghost of the little boy that Atkins never knew has followed her ever since. His old guitar led her to a career in music, and on her debut album, so many years later, the title track is written in his voice. Named after the New Jersey city where both Atkins and Dominic grew up, Neptune City is a bittersweet, modern-day elegy about a boy looking down on his hometown and the people in it as they mourn his loss.

A sad story, yes, but as we learned from Taken By Trees, pain makes beautiful music.

Like what you hear? Check out Nicole’s website!