Tony Furtado

Fundamentally, these songs and performances seem to draw on the legacy of the Southern California-based singer-songwriter movement of the early '70s, which, like Furtado's own creative impulse, was a personalized outgrowth of traditional folk music. This connection is most readily apparent on "Need a Friend," the Lauderdale collaboration, on which Furtado manages to simultaneously play the roles made famous by Jackson Browne and his brilliant accompanist, David Lindley (a musician with whom Tony feels a kinship, since both started as banjo players before becoming slide specialists). Furtado's scintillating bottleneck work on the track dramatically displays his transition from fleet-fingered picker to song-serving player.