Some storytellers spin yarns. Austin-born and Portland-based singer-songwriter Andy Furgeson spins Red Yarn.
After the Austinite musician, puppeteer and educator moved to Portland in 2005, Furgeson began an exploration of animals in American folk music. Around 2008, he created a blog called Red Yarn to chronicle his folkloric research and growing interest in puppetry, eventually diving deep into the folk music catalog with his Lomax-a-Day and Songbag-a-Day projects, adapting 60+ songs from classic anthologies. Red Yarn became Andy’s alter-ego, an itinerant bard and animal whisperer with a red beard and by 2011, Andy was performing regularly at libraries, cafes and community events, and joined Young Audiences’ roster of teaching artists.
Since committing himself full time to Red Yarn in June 2012, Andy has performed at hundreds of venues and events, taught music and puppetry to thousands of students, and touched the lives of countless families with his songs, puppets and positive messages. With the release of The Deep Woods in 2013 and Deep Woods Revival in 2015, plans for a tour and kids TV show, Red Yarn hopes to take his creative folklore project to a national scale.
You can stream Red Yarn right here at KUTX!
