Tret Fure
(1951 - living) U.S.A.
Music producer, engineer
She was born into a large Italian-Norwegian family, her father being Norwegian and her mother Italian. She had three brothers, and was raised in the Midwest, mostly in Marquette, Michigan, a place she "ran from" at 19. One of the earliest things she learned was acoustic guitar.
"I started when I was 11. My brother came home with a guitar, and he was gonna learn to play, and I just grabbed it from him and started picking out melodies, 'cause I was really good at that. I'd done that with piano when I was five. And then I played violin. But once I found the guitar, I just forgot everything but. There weren't songbooks in those days, so I learned by listening carefully to albums, just putting my ear up to the speaker. I learned to fingerpick listening to Judy Collins, the way she played."
She ended up in Los Angeles, where she collaborated with Spencer Davis on Mousetrap in 1970 and made her self-titled solo album in 1973. As the decade trucked on, Fure moved increasingly into studio work. She was the first staff producer and engineer for the influential women's-music label Olivia Records, which was founded by a collective that included musicians Meg Christian and Cris Williamson (her lover).
At the dawn of the 80s, Fure began the relationship that has defined much of her public perception thus far, by engineering a children's record for Williamson. Their business and personal connection would engender three duo albums, innumerable concerts, a long and loving union, and a reputation as what Fure now mordantly terms "poster children for codependency."
The 1993 death of her mother led to a transition that is still going on and has overturned what she thought were the cornerstones of her life. Her need to find herself led to her departure from her 20-year musical and personal bond with Cris Williamson and also from the West Coast, where she'd lived for 30 years, from a home she had built.
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