Preview: Combining styles, Tony Furtado to play at The Ark
But that’s what Tony Furtado did, and the result is a unique sound that shows off his versatility and brims with an eclectic spirit.
Some history: Furtado learned the banjo as a youth, and by the time he was 19, he had earned his prodigy status by winning two National Bluegrass Banjo Championships. Then he began his recording career, releasing a couple of banjo-centric albums for Rounder.
But, all the while, there was another sound that had always captured his imagination — the emotive, evocative sound of the slide guitar. “Even as a kid, there was something about it that sounded familiar and enticing,” says Furtado, who comes to The Ark on Sept. 8. “But it wasn’t until I picked up Ry Cooder’s “Paradise and Lunch” album, after I’d already started my recording career, that I decided I had to learn how to play the slide." So, in the mid-1990s, Furtado “got off the road, moved back in with my parents, and dedicated myself to learning it..
“And every day, I would just go down to the local farmer’s market and sit on a crate and just play as much as possible.”
After a year or so of intense woodshedding, Furtado’s debuted his slide-guitar chops on record, “Roll My Blues Away,” in 1997. His languid, sultry slide-guitar sound got the notice of the guitar world, and he was featured in several guitar magazines (including a story in Guitar Player, written by yours truly, about his newly developed slide chops and the “Blues” album.)
His subsequent albums found Furtado alternating from banjo to the slide-guitar, sometimes from song to song — and sometimes within the same song — yielding a sound that is difficult to categorize, as it draws from blues, bluegrass, old-time mountain music, traditional folk and roots-rock. Plus, he’s emerged as one who could also fit into the singer-songwriter category, because in recent years he’s written more and more songs with lyrics that also showcase his singing voice (whereas, in the early years, most of his compositions were instrumentals).
On Furtado’s latest disc, “Deep Water” — his 14th album — he wears all of those hats. There are a few instrumentals, a couple of sturdy, uptempo roots-rockers, some pensive songs in which he sings about nature and redemption — and, as is now usually the case with him, that delicate balance between banjo and slide guitar.
Furtado’s desire to not be pigeonholed was one of the reasons that, for “Deep Water,” he tapped a producer that most folks would not immediately think of as a first choice for a roots-music artist — Sean Slade, who has produced albums by modern-rock groups like the Pixies, Dinosaur Jr., Radiohead and Dresden Dolls.
“Yeah, I wanted to do some experimenting on this record, and Sean had played on my previous album, and I liked his vibe,” says Furtado. “And on this record, I wanted to rein things in and do more of the playing myself” — compared to on his last couple of records, where he employed several backing musicians. On those discs, recalls Furtado, “it was several of us, sitting in the studio, playing everything live, which meant the ultimate outcome of the song was shaped by all of us at once — it was sort of a ‘group rule’ situation.” “But this time, I wanted the challenge of playing almost all of the instruments, and overdubbing my banjo over my slide guitar,” he explains. “This way, it put all of the outcome of how the song ultimately sounded on my shoulders — which helped me discover, and decide, on my own, what the song should eventually sound like.”
And unlike his previous discs, “Deep Water” does not feature any covers or traditional folk songs. Furtado has been writing more prolifically than ever the last couple of years, “so I wanted this album to consist entirely of my own songs.”
That writing streak was prompted in part by the fact that Furtado has also been “doing a lot of reading the last few years” — especially writers like Edward Abbey, Charles Bukowski, Richard Wright and Wallace Stevens, reveals Furtado. So, with those kinds of influences, it’s not surprising that much of the album has a moody, reflective tone, which is evident on the first track. It’s an instrumental tune titled “The Bawds of Euphony,” and Furtado uses his melodic banjo playing to create a rich, atmospheric sound, which is accented when his haunting slide-guitar joins in.
A couple of highlights are the punchy roots rockers, “Lighten Up Your Load” and “Raise ‘Em Up,” each of which are propelled by a foursquare groove — created in part by an unconventional-sounding percussion track—and Furtado’s beckoning slide guitar.
Over the summer, Furtado did a “fair number” of shows with a small band, he says. But for this leg of his tour, he’s back do doing his usual solo show — which means he can’t recreate some of the textures on the album, where he used overdubbing to create an interplay between his banjo and slide guitar.
So, onstage, he alternates between those two instruments and a standard acoustic guitar, and the show focuses more on songs with lyrics than it does on instrumentals — which means his voice and words are probably more prominently featured than his awesome instrumental chops.
“I think it’s a well-rounded show; some vocals, some banjo, some slide, some old tunes, some new ones, etc. I like doing it that way. It keeps me more interested, which means that it also keeps the audience more interested.”
Kevin Ransom is a free lance writer and critic who covers music for AnnArbor.com He can be reached at KevinRansom10@aol.com. PREVIEW Tony Furtado Who: Banjo virtuoso, slide guitarist, singer-songwriter. What: Unique mix of blues, bluegrass, roots rock and folk music. Where: The Ark, 316 S. Main St., Ann Arbor. When: Tuesday, 8 p.m. How much: $15. Details: 734-761-1451; The Ark web site