Review: Molly Tuttle Celebrates Her Tree of Life

Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway/Crooked Tree/Nonesuch
Four Out of Five Stars

Don’t worry about tomorrow, I’ve got plenty only mind, Molly Tuttle insists in the opening lines of “She’ll Change,” the initial entry in her revealing new album, Crooked Tree. Mostly autobiographical, it finds her returning to her roots as a bluegrass enthusiast, an essential style passed down from her dad after he initiated her interest at an early age. 

While her career continues to accelerate—this is, after all, her fourth offering in almost as many years, and that doesn’t even include the album she recorded with her dad Jack Tuttle, the EP she made with fiddler John Mailander, the two recordings with her family band The Tuttles, and a pair of offerings with a group she formed in college known as The Goodbye Girls—it’s clear that tomorrow is of secondary importance to the importance she places on the past. Her’s is a storied backstory, after all, one that also encompasses an award from the Americana Music Association as Instrumentalist of the Year and the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Guitar Player of the Year honors, the first woman to ever claim that those credentials.

Consequently, it’s little wonder that Tuttle is so eager to look back on her life as it’s evolved up until now. Sharing the studio with her new band, Golden Highway, she creates a sound that’s culled from the very essence of bluegrass basics, complete with the strum on banjo, frenzied fiddle, and the down-home style that’s borne from the back porches of Appalachia and the homesteads of the heartland. The music allows plenty of room to ramble, from the steady stride of “Dooley’s Farm,” the driving delivery of “Castilleja,” and the eager, upbeat sounds of “Over the Line” and “Nashville Mess Around,” and then to the reflective reminisce of “Crooked Tree” and the sweet sway of “San Francisco Blues.”

Given the fact that Tuttle is essentially telling her story throughout this set of songs—“Flatland Girl,” “Grass Valley,” “Big Backyard” and “Castilleja” offer the most obvious references to what is, in effect, a commentary about her coming of age—honest emotion comes through in every note and nuance. So too, that personal perspective brings honesty and immediacy that makes for an unmistakable impression. Clearly, this Crooked Tree is extremely well rooted. 

Photo credit: Samantha Muljat / Sacks & Co.