Acclaimed singer, songwriter and musician Molly Tuttle will release her anticipated Nonesuch Records debut, Crooked Tree, April 1 with her new bluegrass collective Golden Highway (pre-order here). The album’s title track is available today—listen HERE and watch Tuttle and her band perform the song live HERE.
Recorded live at Nashville’s Oceanway Studios, Crooked Tree was produced by Tuttle and Jerry Douglas and features collaborations with Sierra Hull, Old Crow Medicine Show, Margo Price, Billy Strings, Dan Tyminski and Gillian Welch. The album explores Tuttle’s love of bluegrass, which she discovered through her father, a music teacher and multi-instrumentalist, and her grandfather, a banjo player. Across these thirteen tracks, all of which were written/co-written by Tuttle, she honors the bluegrass tradition while also pushing the genre in new directions.
“I always knew I wanted to make a bluegrass record someday,” Tuttle says. “Once I started writing, everything flowed so easily: sometimes I’ve felt an internal pressure to come up with a sound no one’s heard before, but this time my intention was just to make an album that reflected the music that’s been passed down through generations in my family. I found a way to do that while writing songs that feel true to who I am, and it really helped me to grow as a songwriter.”
In celebration of the new music, Tuttle and Golden Highway—Bronwyn Keith-Hynes (fiddle), Dominick Leslie(mandolin), Shelby Means (bass) and Kyle Tuttle (banjo)—will embark on an extensive headline tour beginning tonight with shows at Seattle’s Tractor Tavern (two nights), Portland’s Mississippi Studios (two nights), Los Angeles’ Roxy, Salt Lake City’s State Room, Boulder’s Fox Theatre, Asheville’s The Grey Eagle and Nashville’s Station Inn, among several others. See below for the complete itinerary. Full details can be found at mollytuttlemusic.com/tour.
In addition to Tuttle (vocals, guitars), Douglas (dobro), Keith-Hynes (fiddle) and Leslie (mandolin), Crooked Tree also features musicians Darol Anger (fiddle), Ron Block (banjo), Mike Bub (upright bass), Jason Carter (fiddle), Viktor Krauss (upright bass), Todd Phillips (upright bass) and Christian Sedelmyer (fiddle) with additional harmony vocals from Tina Adair, Lindsay Lou and Melody Walker.
Raised in Northern California, Tuttle attended Berklee College of Music and moved to Nashville in 2015. In the years since, she has released two full length albums: her 2019 debut, When You’re Ready, and …but i’d rather be with you, a covers album released in 2020. NPR Music praised When You’re Ready saying, “Tuttle applies remarkable precision to her pursuit of clarity…handsomely crafted melodies that gently insinuate themselves into the memory,” while the Wall Street Journal added, “stunning acoustic guitar-picking…invigorating, mature and attention-grabbing first album.” Additionally, of …but i’d rather be with you, The New Yorker said, “the record’s star is ‘She’s a Rainbow’…in Tuttle’s reading, the song uses a bluegrass spirit to look to the past—and a feminist allegiance to peek at the future.”
An award-winning artist, Tuttle was named Instrumentalist of the Year at the 2018 Americana Music Awards and the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Guitar Player of the Year in both 2017 and 2018, the first woman in the history of the IBMA to receive the honor. Tuttle has performed around the world, including shows with Sam Bush, Béla Fleck, Hiss Golden Messenger, Jason Isbell, Old Crow Medicine Show and Dwight Yoakam as well as at several major festivals including Bonnaroo, Newport Folk and Pilgrimage.
CROOKED TREE TRACKLIST
1. She’ll Change
2. Flatland Girl feat. Margo Price
3. Dooley’s Farm feat. Billy Strings
4. Big Backyard feat. Old Crow Medicine Show
5. Crooked Tree
6. Castilleja
7. The River Knows
8. Over the Line feat. Sierra Hull
9. Nashville Mess Around
10. San Francisco Blues feat. Dan Tyminski
11. Goodbye Girl
12. Side Saddle feat. Gillian Welch
13. Grass Valley
MOLLY TUTTLE & GOLDEN HIGHWAY CONFIRMED TOUR DATES
January 20—Seattle, WA—Tractor Tavern
January 21—Seattle, WA—Tractor Tavern
January 22—Portland, OR—Mississippi Studios
January 23—Portland, OR—Mississippi Studios
January 25—Grass Valley, CA—Center for the Arts
January 26—Sacramento, CA—Goldfields
January 27—Mill Valley, CA—Sweet Water Music Hall
January 28—Morro Bay, CA—The Siren
January 31—Santa Barbara, CA—Soho
February 1—San Juan Capistrano, CA—The Coach House
February 2—Los Angeles, CA—The Roxy
February 24—Salt Lake City, UT—The State Room
February 25—Fort Collins, CO—Aggie Theatre
February 26—Steamboat Springs, CO—WinterWonderGrass
February 27—Boulder, CO—Fox Theatre
March 2—Omaha, NE—Slowdown
March 3—Lawrence, KS—Bottleneck
March 4—St. Louis, MO—Old Rock House
March 5—Indianapolis, IN—Hi-Fi Indy
March 6—Louisville, KY—Zanzabar
March 10—Nashville, TN—Station Inn
March 11—Asheville, NC—The Grey Eagle
March 12—Clemson, SC—Clemson Guitar Festival
March 13—Chattanooga, TN—Songbirds North
March 18—Pelham, TN—The Caverns
April 21—Tampa, FL—The Attic
April 22—Lake Wales, FL—Bok Tower Gardens
April 23—Miramar Beach, FL—Moon Crush 2022
April 28—Menlo Park, CA—The Guild Theater
April 30—Indio, CA—Stagecoach
June 16—Telluride, CO—Telluride Bluegrass Festival
June 30—Quincy, CA—High Sierra Music Festival
September 2—Mill Spring, NC—Earl Scruggs Music Festival
