December 1, 2000 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE 13

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On her own after 20 years, Tret Fure returns to folk roots

by Harriet L&Schwarz

If heartbreak is the stuff of good music, then Tret Fure's fall tour and upcoming solo album may be among her best work yet. Fure and partner Cris Williamson separated last January and then ended their relationship in March. Just as Fure and Williamson were one of the lesbian community's most visible long-term couples, Fure talks openly about the pain of the breakup.

Tret Fure

"It was a two-month struggle to end a 20year relationship," Fure said in a recent phone interview. "By the end of March I had the truck packed. It's still a painful transition. The oracles say it takes a year to get through something like this."

Fure seems to be returning to the elements that sooth her. When she packed that truck, she left her country home outside Eugene, Oregon and drove to Madison, Wisconsin where she has family. Though Fure and Williamson made their home in Oregon, Fure, who lived much of her life in Los Angeles, says she was "never really a country girl."

Additionally, she is returning to her musical roots. "I love the direction my music is taking," Fure says. "It's going back toward a folk vein. It's healing, it's back to my roots. It's all acoustic and that's something I've wanted to do for a long time. I need to get that out of my system."

Fure speaks with reverence about Williamson as a musician. She also expresses what sounds like genuine appreciation for the music they made together, at one point recalling "the way we could make our two voices sound as one." Fure even suggests that she and Williamson may work together musically, again in the future. However, Fure is also clear that her more recent work with Williamson was a bit limiting, both in the studio and on stage.

"Working solo again has been powerful for me," Fure says. "I have felt the need to reemerge as a solo artist. I loved the music that Cris and I did, and I was always doing my [own] music with Cris, but often I was writ-

ing more music than lyrics. I had to find my voice again.

"Even as a performer, I need to be seen as a solo artist. It's hard. I did some spring shows and they were difficult. I had not performed solo for ten years. It was scary to get back out there by myself, it's very naked. But it was also very powerful and the audience has really been there for me.'

Fure says that working solo is helping her grow as a vocalist. She notes that working as

part of a duo allowed her and Williamson to rely on each other, but that singing solo forces her to carry all aspects of the show herself. In addition Fure adds that Williamson had been incredibly supportive of her musical endeavors as well as an important source of feedback. Now Fure needs to turn back to herself for those more emotional aspects of a music

career.

Fure says that most of the set list on her tour is acoustic, but that she will also include a few songs with electric guitar. Fure hopes her tour will not only begin to rebuild her solo performing career, but also raise money toward her new album, due out early in 2001.

"I'm incredibly proudfor my first solo album in ten years, I am incredibly proud of this work," she says. "I've written all of the material in the last year, since my life crisis. That impacted my writing. So much writing is from pain. There is nothing like a huge breakup to distill, if not wisdom, at least the voice of your heart."

Fure describes the new songs as "moving" and very emotional, adding that some express pain while others are more optimistic.

While Fure says she gets some degree of inspiration from poets like Adrienne Rich, William Butler Yeats,

Richard Wilbur, and Sylvia Plath, she says that her inspiration comes primarily from within.

"My voice comes from inside," she says. "I spend a lot of time listening to myself and not listening to outside influences. That has helped me define myself more than anything."

Though she feels she is self-defined as a musician, Fure appreciates a range of other artists including Jonatha Brook, Cheryl Wheeler, Catie Curtis, and Shawn Colvin. In addition, she enjoys Celtic music.

Fure's last solo album was Time Turns the Moon, released in 1990. Prior to that she released Edges of the Heart, Terminal Hold, and Tret Fure, her first solo album which was released by MCA in 1973. The first entry on Fure's discography is Mousetrap with Spencer Davis, put out by United Artists in 1970. That first Fure album offered a glimpse into a legendary career about to unfold.

Playing with the likes of Davis in the early '70s was a remarkable accomplishment for Fure, at a time when women had very few opportunities of that stature in the music industry. Indeed Fure wrote the first single on Davis' album. Just a few years later, Lowell George of Little Feat produced Fure's first solo album. She went on to open for the likes of art rockers Yes, and commercial rock powerhouses Poco and the J. Geils Band.

Building on her successes, Fure became one of the first women sound engineers in the country, firmly establishing herself as a multi-talented artist-producer, writer, vo-

calist, and instrumentalist. She also made a significant decision to leave the mainstream music industry and work as an independent artist-becoming a legendary force in the women's music community. While Fure

"My voice comes from

inside. I spend a lot of time listening to myself

and not listening to

outside influences.”

likely has the critical acclaim and fan base to eventually return to the mainstream, she remains a committed independent.

"It's such a youth-driven industry, the older I get, the less I feel a part of it, the less chance I have of being part of the mainstream," says Fure, 49. "It is good that there is an independent culture that is always there for independent artists. You see artists sign with a major label, and then they're dropped, and so they return to independent.

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"I feel very secure that I have a place to work, my own company. I have people who will donate to my cause so I can make a CD. Technology also makes it easier to do more yourself...I feel confident because there is such a large independent arena, and women's arena-I can cover myself."

Fure is also expanding her reach as an entrepreneur. Her web site www.tretfure.com offers more than music, including T-shirts, poetry and recipes. Rumor has it that a cookbook may be in the works, and additionally, Fure notes that she has dreams of opening a coffeehouse and folk club in Madison.

T-shirts and tofu aside, Fure still sounds most energized by the music. "Pretty soon after I started touring this spring, I felt the magic that I was in the right place doing the right thing," she says. "I have spent 15 years sharing the spotlight, and it was a spotlight I loved sharing. But there is a magic when you are up there alone and you connect with your audience and your attention is on them, and theirs is on you."

Tret Fure will play two shows in Ohio at the beginning of December. On December 1 she will be at Far Side, 1662 W. Mound St, Columbus, 614-276-5817. The following night, December 2, she will be at Lydia's, 1348 S. Arlington Rd, Akron, 330-773-3001.

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