Tony Furtado

Tony Furtado has been called a genius on banjo and slide guitar and his own creative interpretation/hybrid of Americana and indie rock is captivating. Onstage, whether playing with a band or solo, he owns the room, mixing stories of his travels with musicianship that is off the charts. Now, a confident, charming live performer, Tony's newer material reveals a range of topics and emotion far beyond the expected. He has lived primarily on the road for the last two decades. He is gregarious, insanely talented, engaging and entertaining, on and off stage. Granted, he's had places to live, but they've been temporary spaces (to paraphrase George Carlin) "they were places to put his stuff". That is, until he moved to Portland, OR. Now, Tony Furtado, the trouveur, has found a place to call home. And it makes sense that the atmosphere of 'home' would allow him to write and produce his most accessible, engaging album to date entitled Golden.

Early on Tony made a conscious decision to record Golden in Portland. This allowed him to draw on the talents of his hometown musical compadres such as Paul Brainard, Ezra Holbrook, Stephanie Schneiderman, Scott Law, Drew Shoals, Tye North, Johnny Connoly (just to name a few). For his 15 album, Tony decided to produce it himself. He booked time with his friend and engineer, Rob Stroup at his "8-Ball Studio". Furtado found him to be such an intuitive and complementary partner it quickly became evident Rob was not just the engineer, but also co-producer.

While on hiatus from touring, Tony hosted residencies at two Portland venues, The Woods and The Secret Society. These popular weekly events included special guest songwriters and instrumentalists. Sharing these shows with some of his local and national favorites such as Casey Neil, Jeremy Wilson, Dangermuffin and Kenny White was extremely energizing for Tony. During this time, he was also invited by songwriter Adam Levy to take part in a "virtual" songwriting club (including Ari Hest, Garrison Star, and Vienna Teng among others) where each artist was given a title per week to work on:

"We'd get some title on a Sunday night and we would have to finish writing and recording the song and uploading it to a website by Thursday at midnight...it was only a little excercise for us all but I really dug it and even got a few keepers that made it onto Golden!"

Golden is the album Tony has been moving towards making his whole career. Having received international attention at a young age for his banjo work, he began his recording career with a 10-year stint with Rounder Records working with the likes of Allison Krauss, Kelly Joe Phels and Jerry Douglas. During that time, he was drawn to the slide guitar by artists such as Ry Cooder and David Linley. Over the years,Tony continued to broaden his musical palette and began singing and songwriting as well. He co-wrote with the likes of Jules Sheer, Al Anderson and Jim Lauderdale. On his newest release, Tony took on the role of writer, arranger and for the first time, producer. The ease and comfort with which he stepped into this role clearly comes through in the music and you can hear Tony in every note.

On Golden, he has not only come into his own comfort zone, but he has surpassed all expectations for this record. From the instantly riveting opening track, Toe The Line, to the poignant Angelina, Golden travels all the emotions of the human heart. Heartbreak, joy, frailty, love of beauty, sadness, etc; all have their place on Golden.