Guitarist-singer-songwriter Molly Tuttle caused bit of seismic activity in the roots music world when in the middle of May she announced a brand new band and the beginning of a brand new era, after the smashing, GRAMMY-winning run of her decidedly bluegrass outfit, Golden Highway. With several years of touring and two critically acclaimed and audience-adored albums with that group under her belt, Tuttle posted on social media that she had assembled Mary Meyer (fiddle, mandolin, keys), Vanessa McGowan (bass), Megan Jane (drums, percussion) and Ellen Angelico (guitars, Dobro) for her new backing band. Predictably, the award-amassing picker had many a bluegrass “chair snapper” run to her comment sections to decry her abandonment of bluegrass, her selling out, and her forsaking the genre that made her.
A little over a month later, Tuttle announced her upcoming album, So Long Little Miss Sunshine, due out August 15 via Nonesuch Records. With that second wave of exciting news she dropped the LP’s first single, “That’s Gonna Leave a Mark.” Last week, she and her newly-minted band appeared on CBS Saturday Morning to perform that track (watch above) as well as a burnin’ fan favorite from the Golden Highway years, “San Joaquin” (watch below). In addition, Tuttle spoke to journalist Anthony Mason about the project, her creative process, and how and why she’s ready for something fresh and different – sonically, and otherwise. (Watch Tuttle’s interview with Mason below, as well.)
“Okay, yeah, I want to set the record straight!” Tuttle laughs when asked about “abandoning bluegrass” and her more string-band-inclined fans. “I’m not abandoning the bluegrass fans. I feel like, with my music, a door will just open and then I’m walking through it.”
“With my last two records,” she continues, “I just felt so inspired to go back to my roots and write bluegrass songs. And, all of a sudden in the last year, I was like, ‘It’s time to do something different, to do something totally new, and find my own sound that’s not emulating a certain genre or style.'”
Longtime fans of Tuttle know that dabbling in genres on the fringes of more traditional bluegrass has always been a practice at the core of her creativity, songwriting, and expression. Her debut EP after moving to Nashville, 2017’s Rise, was far from straight ahead bluegrass in structure, arrangements, and production. In 2019 she released When You’re Ready. Her full-length debut, it boasted bluegrass and flatpicking bones with dashes of old-time and country, but couldn’t be easily or simply defined – or entirely contained – underneath any of those aesthetic umbrellas. “That’s Gonna Leave a Mark” is poppy, bold, and broad with dashes of Katie Gavin (of MUNA), Sheryl Crow, and Aimee Mann. But still, it’s anchored by, of all things, clawhammer guitar. Is that “abandoning” the genres that made her?
Along the way, Tuttle’s live shows have always been expansive, joyous, and fun, whatever the personnel on stage – and her shows have always been unconcerned with genre fidelity, too. (Even as she crisscrossed the country and the globe with her beloved ‘grassy Golden Highway comrades.) Now, with her new “that ain’t bluegrass” band, she continues playing with genre and expectations.
For instance, at ROMP in Owensboro, Kentucky, last month she at one point invited Del, Ronnie, and Rob McCoury onstage for a guest slot, many a Golden Highway track made the set list, and she covered both “Blue Moon of Kentucky” and a dramatic, languid version of Icona Pop and Charli XCX’s smash hyperpop hit “I Love It” for her twin encores. This sort of musical multiplicity from Tuttle isn’t anything new, it’s foundational. It’s a keystone on which she’s built her entire brand. Her incredible covers album, 2020’s pandemic-proffered …but i’d rather be with you is another excellent example of this fact.
It’s clear Tuttle, her band, and her team are knee-deep in messaging and intentionally reinforcing their brand identity for this next album and her headlining “The Highway Knows” tour, which kicks off in September. Whether on CBS Saturday Morning, social media, or a bluegrass festival stage, that task comes incredibly naturally to Tuttle, because these sounds aren’t a gimmick. This isn’t a cash grab or selling out or abandoning anything or anyone. It’s Molly Tuttle being exactly who she has always been. After all, just when you think you know her, “She’ll Change.”
