With two full albums of refreshingly original material already to her credit, singer-songwriter and banjoist Gina Furtado has quickly become one of the most powerfully individualistic artists working in the bluegrass vein today. Now, following the success of the whimsically lighthearted “Alley Cat,” The Gina Furtado Project is back with “Gone,” a new single that offers further evidence of her unique melodic, rhythmic and lyric sensibilities.
Produced, like “Alley Cat,” by GRAMMY®-nominated Mountain Home artist Thomm Jutz, “Gone” is a showcase for the Project’s virtuosity, as Furtado, her sister Malia (fiddle) and guitarist Drew Matulich dish up inventive solos, while the latter’s percussive mandolin teams with Max Johnson’s robust bass for a dose of classic bluegrass muscle that keeps the music moving along. Furtado delivers the solo vocal with characteristic confidence, navigating her way with determination through the tangled emotions of a lyric that oscillates between conveying the pain of abandonment and the persistence of hope:
“Why don’t you lock me in a cell
Throw out the key, you might as well
Those memories keep hanging on
And you’re gone.
Just look at me
Left at the pound
Your loyal hound
Here waiting by the door
A fool could see that you don’t want me anymore”
"I always enjoy dipping my toes into various genres with my songwriting, but at the core I'm a bluegrass banjo player through and through,” notes Furtado, a 3-time nominee for the IBMA’s Banjo Player of the Year award. "'Gone' draws from some of my earliest influences, which go back to songs about heartache, hopelessness and the hard driving bluegrass style of South West Virginia. It was really fun to cut loose a little on this one!"
