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Tret Fure’s career
spans 4 decades. She began her professional
work at the age of 16, singing in coffeehouses and
campuses in the Midwest, moving to Berkeley where,
after performing weekly on the campus of UC
Berkeley where she attended college, she
discovered that music really was her life.
At 19, she moved to LA to pursue a songwriting and
musical career. Within a year she was
performing as guitarist and vocalist for Spencer
Davis, touring with him and penning the single for
his album “Mousetrap”. She went
on to record her own album in 1973 on MCA/UNI
Records, with the late Lowell George of Little
Feat as her producer. With the success of
that release, she opened for such bands as Yes,
Poco, and the J Geils Band.
While recording her second album, Tret
became interested in sound engineering,
learning the trade and becoming one of
the first women engineers in LA.
Over the course of her career she has
engineered and produced countless
recordings by a variety of artists,
including her own work.
In the early
80s, Tret left the mainstream music
industry. Armed with a fierce desire
to retain full artistic control, she began
exploring the independent side of the
industry and soon discovered the
blossoming genre known as Women’s
Music. She has been a major player
in that field ever since, recording with
and producing some of the best of
women’s music including the
legendary “Meg & Cris at
Carnegie Hall”. She worked
as a duo with Cris Williamson throughout
the 90s releasing 3 CDs together during
those years. Now after 4 acoustic releases
on her own label, Tomboy girl
Records, she has re-established
herself in the folk world winning the
2004 South Florida Folk Festival
Singer/Songwriter Competition in 2 out of
3 categories. 2004 also brought her
recognition with the prestigious Jane
Schliessman Award for Outstanding
Contributions to Women’s Music.
Fure also markets
of her own line of clothing named after her
popular song “Tomboy girl”. In
addition, while not on the road, Tret teaches
guitar and songwriting individually and in
workshop settings. An accomplished cook, Fure
has also published a cookbook, Tret's
Kitchen, featuring her own recipes.
Along with bridging the marketing, production,
and music worlds, Tret serves as Vice President
of Local 1000, The Traveling Musicians
Association--a union geared toward helping traveling
musicians find security and longevity. She also
co-chairs The New Harvest Foundation, a foundation
that channels charitable contributions exclusively
to organizations working to promote LGBT rights,
services, culture and community development.
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Tret Fure continues to turn out marvelous albums, her latest
being “True Compass” (Tomboy Girl). Who else could
have written a love song such as “Look What Love Has Given
Me”? It’s a song that is at once personal and
universal in its affectionate expression of happiness. Fure
keeps it coming in the jazzy flourishes of the title track, the
acoustic twang of “Six Beers,” the heartache
of “32 Years,” the political voice of “
Try” and the rhythmic “Leap of Faith."
Gregg Shapiro, Chicago Free Press
Oct 24, 2007 Vol. 9, No. 9
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