Last night I heard Tony Furtado live on etown and checked out his discography on All Music Guide, then zoomed off to Amazon.com to buy, buy, buy. Picking Bare Bones, Roll My Blues Away, and These Chains was easy, based on the reviews offered by AMG and Amazon customers, not to mention having heard songs from Bare Bones and These Chains on etown.
But then came the choice between American Gypsy and Gypsy Live. The AMG reviewer was gungho for Live. The Amazon reviewers were split. Fortunately Amazon provided samples from the albums. Comparing the snippets of “Oh Berta, Berta,” “Staggerlee,” “The Angry Monk,” and “Bottle of Hope” convinced me to go for Live Gypsy.
Do any of you prefer the studio version? If so, why?
Thoughts on his other albums? I’m not a huge bluegrass fan, though I like it in reasonable doses. Should I stay away from his earliest albums?
