Like an old folk tale told around a summer night’s campfire with marshmallows roasting crispy brown, bluegrass instrumentalism has been passed down through Molly Tuttle’s family for generations, beginning with her grandfather the banjo player who lives on a farm in Illinois, to her father who grew up on that farm and taught her to play guitar when she was eight years old. By 11, Tuttle was attending bluegrass jam sessions and a couple of years later at 13, she was playing on albums. As reported by American Songwriter in 2022, Tuttle says she was “obsessed” with music, and that obsession led her to become the first woman to win the International Bluegrass Music Association's Guitar Player of the Year award back in 2017.
Yet despite this lifelong experience with the genre of bluegrass, it wasn’t until last year, at the age of 29, that Tuttle finally released an album dedicated to bluegrass music: 2022’s Crooked Tree, with her band Golden Highway. Even though she was learning to master the guitar and playing bluegrass throughout her young life, she says the genre didn’t resonate with her authentically. That is until she started to really listen to the stories told through the songwriting.
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