This being the holiday season, the whole family is coming home Friday for a big feast. It's Boulder's far-flung acoustic jam clan, and the members are seldom in town at the same time.

The Boulder Theater smorgasbord features guitar and banjo whiz Tony Furtado, in from Portland, Ore. Leftover Salmon alumnus Drew Emmitt invited Bill Nershi and Keith Moseley of String Cheese Incident to join in. The alt-country band Buckskin Stallion, distant musical cousins, will get the party started.

Furtado's band will include Denver guitarist Ross Martin, e-town drummer Christian Peel and bassist Matt Spencer.

"Who knows who else will show up? There will be a lot of mixing up among the players, I'm sure," Furtado said, calling from his home in Oregon. He started the after-Thanksgiving concert tradition during his six-year residence in Boulder.

Furtado's recently released CD Bare Bones was recorded during his solo gigs, including some warm-up sets for Greg Allman.

"It was exciting, but it was also scary. There'd be 1,500 serious Allman fans out there and I'd have to win them over. I usually started with some crazy slide thing," he said.

One thing Furtado doesn't want to be known for is being a hot-licks picker who blasts out billions and billions of notes.

"When I was younger, I was listening to Strength in Numbers, that superband with Bela Fleck, Marc O'Connor and Jerry Douglas. I was blown away. How could they write and play like that? But I wasn't lost in the music," he said.

Furtado started listening to bluesman R.L. Burnside and deep Mississippi blues. "It's about the feeling. You hear that drone and you get mesmerized," he said.

As a live performer, Furtado's hero is the late John Hartford because "he brought all kinds of elements into the show," he said. "He was all about creating a cool experience for the audience, not just notes.

"I aspire to be an entertainer like that so it's not just me wonking off on my guitar. There's got to be some kind of unpredictable element to make it enjoyable for me. If I have fun, the audience has fun."

Furtado had moved to Portland after a stint in Los Angeles.

"It's a terrible place to try to make a living as a musician. You really have to fight tooth and nail to get anywhere," he said.

One good experience for Furtado in L.A. was participating in the star-studded Tribute to Gram Parsons. "I was in the house band. All I was told was 'Don't play too much.' I understood because right next to me were (guitar legends) Al Perkins and James Burton," he said.

A major highlight for Furtado was backing Rolling Stone Keith Richards on the Parsons-dedicated song Wild Horses.

"Keith was doing that thing where, when he's singing, he's not playing. I figured, 'I'm playing acoustic slide because he's not,' " Furtado said.

For Drew Emmitt, coming back to Boulder is a literal homecoming for the Crested Butte resident.

"I grew up in Boulder and lived there for 18 years. I still have family there, and it still feels like home," said Emmitt, son of the late Colorado writer Robert Emmitt.

Friday's show will be "like a representation of the Colorado music scene over the past decade," the mandolinist and singer said. "It's a melting pot of styles." His band will feature two local jam-band heroes, String Cheese Incident guitarist Bill Nershi and bass player Keith Moseley, along with young progressive banjoist Chris Pandolfi.

"We'll play some of my songs from (the recent CD) Across the Bridge (Compass), some of Billy's songs, some String Cheese tunes and probably some bluegrass," Emmitt said.

"I expect there to be a lot of cross-pollination going on. I really enjoy playing with Billy. We go back a long ways in the Colorado music scene, and Tony played with Leftover Salmon a bunch when (late banjoist) Mark Vann was ill."

The featured players at the concert go so far back together that when they first started playing, "we didn't call it jam music," Emmitt said. "It was just the music that we played."

Emmitt has been developing his solo career since Leftover Salmon "retired" about a year ago.

"I miss some aspects of being in the band, but for me it means I have control of my future for a change," he said. "I don't feel like I'm being pulled along by a giant machine. I'm home more, and that's great for my family."

• Of note: Drew Emmitt, former Leftover Salmon buddy Vince Herman and Peter Rowan perform Dec. 31 with Yonder Mountain String Band and Darol Anger at the Fillmore Auditorium.

lehndorffj@rockymountainnews.com or 303-892-5103

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