Tony Furtado keeps busy. The Portland, Oregon-based artist may be known to most as a musician, a roots and newgrass player whose banjo and slide guitar playing kept him busy at club shows and festivals since coming on the national roots music scene in the late 1980s.
He also works in ceramics, creating sculptures that can be found in galleries around the Pacific Northwest. It’s two artistic outlets that have fueled his creativity now for decades – the music side of the outlet being on full display when Furtado and duo partner Luke Price pull into Durango on Feb. 26, when the pair play a show at the Durango Arts Center.
If you go
WHAT: Roots and Americana with Tony Furtado and Luke Price
WHEN: 7 p.m. Feb. 26
WHERE: Durango Arts Center, 802 East Second Ave.
TICKETS: $30
MORE INFORMATION: Visit www.durangoarts.org
Longtime fans may remember Furtado’s high-energy shows in Durango in the mid-’90s, when he performed regularly at the old San Juan Room. In those days he traveled with a full band; now he takes a more stripped-down approach, where sitting and listening is the main venue vibe.
“Back when I was playing the San Juan Room, I was trying to get people off their butts, dancing, and it was fun,” he said. “But there was much more to be done from an artistic point of view. I still love doing that kind of show, but I’ve been more in the realm of a singer-songwriter who also plays a lot of instruments. A lot of my show ranges between songs I’ve written, old folk songs I explore as well as instrumentals from the past that I love doing.”
Five time fiddle champion Price remains a perfect duo partner for Furtado, a player who knows the original Furtado material as well as the wealth of public-domain tunes that have been in Furtado’s repertoire for decades. The DAC show will dig into a load of roots music, musical, a fly by the seat of your pants offering of string-band theatrics.
“We could sort through the whole night, and I don’t even have to make a setlist. We absolutely love that. And also the exchange between the two of us, he’s such a solid instrumentalist that we could just bounce back and forth and create all the tension and all the release, it’s all still there,” Furtado said. “The rhythm, the groove, it’s just got more room. He’s also a great singer and so all of my songs have really great harmony singing, so it’s the best of both worlds.”
With banjo in hand (the instrument Furtado first got into after making one as a kid out of a pie tin), you’d file Furtado under bluegrass. But he also is a student of the guitar, with his shows featuring not only the aforementioned five-string, but perhaps a baritone ukulele, and for sure a guitar or two played with slide. It’s all string music that lives somewhere between festival jams and post-acoustic blues from a musician with a fondness of all the instruments he’ll bring on stage.
“I have an equal love for each instrument. There is an ease for me with the banjo, just because that was my first instrument. But I also was studying classical guitar when I was a kid, so you know the guitar has almost always been there for me,” he said. “The slide guitar thing came when I was in my early 20s, when I discovered Ry Cooder, David Lindley and Taj Mahal and all kinds of roots guys like that. And I found what I wanted to do – I wanted to take influences from all kinds of roots music and infuse it into songs that I write, and old instrumentals. And that’s basically what I do.”
Furtado’s latest single titled “The Immigrant” can be heard via his website and on streaming services, with a full length likely dropping later this year.
Bryant Liggett is a freelance writer and KDUR station manager. Reach him at liggett_b@fortlewis.edu.
