Tony Furtado
American musician

Tony Furtado (born October 18, 1967) is an American singer-songwriter, banjoist, and guitarist.
History
Furtado was born in Pleasanton, California. He took up the banjo at age 12, inspired by the Beverly Hillbillies television show and a sixth-grade music report. He studied music and art at California State, Hayward. He first attracted national attention in 1987, when he won the National Bluegrass Banjo Championship in Winfield, Kansas. Then he toured with bluegrass musician Laurie Lewis. Rounder Records released his debut album, Swamped, in 1990.
In 1990, Tony signed a recording deal with Rounder Records, one of the country's preeminent independent record companies. Beginning with Swamped in 1990, he recorded six critically acclaimed albums for the label, collaborating with such master musicians as Alison Krauss, Jerry Douglas, Tim O'Brien, Stuart Duncan, Kelly Joe Phelps and Mike Marshall. During this period, Tony also performed and recorded with the band SugarBeat and the Rounder Banjo Extravaganza with Tony Trischka and Tom Adams.
The public source identifies “Tony Furtado” as american musician. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Tony, Furtado and American.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 14, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7822401. VIAF identifies the subject as 79927734. The Library of Congress control number is n93019574. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1967, 1987 and 1990.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tony Furtado” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.