TONY FURTADO

CSPS debut | Tony Furtado has been astounding audiences with his virtuoso string work since winning the National Bluegrass Banjo Championships at the tender age of 19. With his travels from bluegrass banjo to blues slide guitar to singer-songwriter territory, the only thing more amazing than Furtado’s virtuosity has been his versatility.

Over the years, he’s opened for and toured with acts such as Greg Allman, Susan Tedeschi, Taj Mahal, Leftover Salmon, Eric Johnson and has shared the stage with the likes of Sonny Landreth, Keith Richards, David Lindley, Derek Trucks and Norah Jones.

Furtado began his professional career as banjo sideman for Laurie Lewis and Grant Street. Records on the Rounder label featuring bluegrass vocalists Allison Krauss and Tim O’Brien followed. Despite the press and praise as one of bluegrass’ most promising artists, Furtado decided one genre wasn’t enough. “I don’t think I could ever be happy staying in any one place musically,” he says.

So Furtado picked up the slide guitar and established himself as a respected acoustic blues player. Using fingers and a bottleneck, it wasn’t long before Furtado began writing songs with an earthier feel and featuring himself as vocalist.  

On 1994’s Full Circle, Furtado wore the musical influences of heroes like Ry Cooder and Blind Willie Johnson on his sleeve. His search for a more personal sound yielded 1997’s power hungry Roll My Blues Away, produced by Cookie Marenco (Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Charlie Haden, Oregon). Country alternative rock fiddler/accordion player Dirk Powell helped reshape Furtado’s sound on their self-titled collaboration two years later, while a full band featuring Buckethead took him even further into the alternative fold for his last album on Rounder.

Now on Funzalo Records, Furtado has reinvented himself again as full-fledged singer-songwriter. 2007’s 13 was recorded at Tucson’s Wavelab Studios, a favorite venue for Calexico, Neko Case, M. Ward and Iron & Wine. 13 featured keyboardists Sean Slade (with production credits including Uncle Tupelo, Radiohead, The Pixies, Radiohead and Dresden Dolls) and Jim Dickinson (producer of Ry Cooder’s seminal albums), bassist Dusty Wakeman (Dwight Yoakam and Lucinda Williams), drummer Winston Watson (Bob Dylan and Giant Sand) and Wavelab’s own Craig Schumacher (Calexico, Case, Iron & Wine), who produced and engineered.

13 boasted 10 originals, including “The Alcohol,” written while living in L.A. and reading lots of Charles Bukowski, and the album’s title song, an update on the traditional mining ballad with the January 2006 Sago mine disaster as its subject. Similarly, “Hurtin; My Right Side” is a modern-day take on another roots idiom -- prison work songs and field hollers.

On this year’s Deep Water, his 14th release, Tony comes full circle with tunes embracing his love of slide guitar, prowess on the banjo and ability to write songs that elicit deep emotion. The release kicks off with “The Bawds of Euphony,” a banjo tune that draws its cryptic title from a Wallace Stevens poem.