Crooked Tree Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway

• 1 She'll Change 02:41
• 2 Flatland Girl (feat. Margo Price) 02:35
• 3 Dooley's Farm (feat. Billy Strings) 03:41
• 4 Big Backyard (feat. Old Crow Medicine Show) 03:17
• 5 Crooked Tree 03:52
• 6 Castilleja 03:16
• 7 The River Knows 03:33
• 8 Over the Line 03:01
• 9 Nashville Mess Around 02:32
• 10 San Francisco Blues (feat. Dan Tyminski) 04:04
• 11 Goodbye Girl 03:21
• 12 Side Saddle (feat. Gillian Welch) 02:44
• 13 Grass Valley 03:50
• Total Runtime 42:27

Info for Crooked Tree

Nonesuch Records schätzt sich glücklich, Molly Tuttle neu in seinen Reihen zu begrüßen. Die preisgekrönte Sängerin, Songwriterin und Musikerin wird am 1. April gemeinsam mit ihrem Bluesgrass-Kollektiv Golden Highway ihr neues Album „Crooked Tree“ veröffentlichen.

Die Albumaufnahmen fanden live in den Oceanway Studios in Nashville statt. „Crooked Tree“ wurde von Tuttle komplett geschrieben oder mitgeschrieben, außerdem produzierte sie gemeinsam mit Jerry Douglas. Als Gäste wirken Sierra Hull, Old Crow Medicine Show, Margo Price, Billy Strings, Dan Tyminski und Gillian Welch mit. Auf dem Album spürt Tuttle ihrer Liebe zum Bluegrass nach, die sie einst durch ihren Vater – ein Musiklehrer und Multiinstrumentalist – und ihren Großvater – ein Banjospieler – entdeckte. Über den Verlauf von 13 Tracks ehrt sie die Bluegrass-Tradition, während sie das Genre gleichzeitig in neue Richtungen vorantreibt.

„Ich wusste immer, dass ich eines Tages eine Bluegrass-Platte aufnehmen wollte“, sagt Tuttle. „Und als ich dann mit dem Songwriting begann, strömte alles wie von selbst aus mir heraus. Ich habe in der Vergangenheit manchmal einen inneren Druck verspürt, neue, ‚ungehörte‘ Sounds kreieren zu müssen. Dieses Mal wollte ich hingegen einfach ein Album machen, das ein Abbild der Musik ist, die in meiner Familie über Generationen weitergegeben wurde. Ich habe einen Weg gefunden, das zu tun und zugleich Songs zu schreiben, mit denen ich mir treu bleibe. Das hat mir sehr geholfen, als Songwriterin zu wachsen.“

Neben Tuttle (Gesang, Gitarren) und Golden Highway – Bronwyn Keith-Hynes (Fiddle), Dominick Leslie (Mandoline), Shelby Means (Bass) und Kyle Tuttle (Banjo) – wirken auf „Crooked Tree“ die Musiker Darol Anger (Fiddle), Ron Block (Banjo), Mike Bub (Kontrabass), Jason Carter (Fiddle), Viktor Krauss (Kontrabass), Todd Phillips (Kontrabass) und Christian Sedelmyer (Fiddle) mit, zusätzlicher Harmoniegesang kommt von Tina Adair, Lindsay Lou und Melody Walker.

Molly Tuttle wuchs in Nordkalifornien auf, besuchte das Berklee College of Music und zog 2015 nach Nashville. In den vergangenen Jahren hat sie zwei Alben veröffentlicht: 2019 das Debüt „When You’re Ready“, gefolgt 2020 von dem Cover-Album „…but i’d rather be with you“. NPR Music sagte seinerzeit über „When You’re Ready“: „Tuttle geht bei ihrer Suche nach Klarheit mit einer bemerkenswerten Präzision zu Werke… kunstvoll gestaltete Melodien, die sich sanft in das Gedächtnis einprägen“, das Wall Street Journal befand: „Atemberaubendes Akustikgitarren-Picking… ein belebendes, reifes und aufsehenerregendes erstes Album.“ Über „…but i’d rather be with you“ schrieb der New Yorker: „Der Star des Albums ist ‚She’s a Rainbow‘ … in Tuttles Lesart nutzt der Song den Geist des Bluegrass, um einen Blick in die Vergangenheit zu werfen – und eine feministische Loyalität, um einen Blick in die Zukunft zu wagen.“

Tuttle wurde bereits mit mehreren Ehrungen ausgezeichnet, u.a. erhielt sie bei den Americana Music Awards 2018 den Preis als „Instrumentalist of the Year“ und wurde von der International Bluegrass Music Association sowohl 2017 als auch 2018 zum „Guitar Player of the Year“ gekürt – als erste Frau in der Geschichte der IBMA. Tuttle ist bereits rund um die Welt aufgetreten, unter anderem bei Konzerten mit Sam Bush, Béla Fleck, Hiss Golden Messenger, Jason Isbell, Old Crow Medicine Show und Dwight Yoakam sowie bei mehreren großen Festivals wie Bonnaroo, Newport Folk und Pilgrimage.
"...kunstvoll gestaltete Melodien, die sich sanft in das Gedächtnis einprägen" (NPR Music)
„Molly Tuttle sings with the gentle authority of Gillian Welch, yet plays astoundingly fleet flat-picking guitar like Chet Atkins on superdrive.” (American Songwriter)

Molly Tuttle, guitar, vocals
Golden Highway:
Bronwyn Keith-Hynes, fiddle
Dominick Leslie, mandolin
Shelby Means, bass
Kyle Tuttle, banjo
Additional musicians:
Old Crow Medicine Show
Darol Anger, fiddle
Ron Block, banjo
Christian Sedelmyer, fiddle
Jason Carter, fiddle
Mike Bub, upright bass
Viktor Krauss, upright bass
Todd Phillips, upright bass
Tina Adair, backing vocals
Lindsay Lou, backing vocals
Melody Walker, backing vocals

Molly Tuttle
speaks softly. Her voice is both lilting and lucid, and when she says that she wants to create music that is truly original and unmistakably hers, her quietness shifts into a steely audacity that’s charming and almost funny––she’s only 25, after all. But then, you remember her songs. And it hits you: brash, beautiful originality is exactly what Molly is doing.
“I love coming up with interesting guitar parts that don’t really fit––that don’t sound like any specific genre or any other guitar players,” Molly says, home in Nashville the day before heading back out to tour. “I am hoping to create my own sound. To find some new ground.”
On her debut solo EP Rise, Molly reveals the rich new ground she’s discovered. Produced by Kai Welch (Abigail Washburn, Bobby Bare, Jr., the Greencards), the seven-song collection relies on a rock-solid bluegrass foundation as Molly breaks free without breaking ties, singing and exploring what her six-string acoustic guitar can do. “This album was a big learning process for me,” Molly says. “I knew Kai would know directions to take my songs that would push me a little outside of my box. I grew a lot more confident in the direction I am heading as an artist.”
Rise further introduces Molly to a roots music audience who’s already enthusiastically embraced and elevated her. Her 2017 win for Guitar Player of the Year from the International Bluegrass Association (IBMA) was history-making, as the first woman to ever be nominated for the honor, and the accolades kept coming in 2018 as Folk Alliance International’s International Folk Music Awards awarded her Song of the Year for her song “You Didn’t Call My Name.”
Anchored by her lucent vocals, smart writing, and incredible flat-picking, Rise is a direct reflection of Molly’s personal and artistic growth over the last several years. A sense of longing––for someone, for a feeling, for a state of being––pulses throughout the EP. “The songs were written over a long period of time, but throughout it, I was experiencing a lot of transitions in my life,” she says. “Going off to college, then moving from Boston to Nashville. All of this music was written from a place of dealing with a lot of change.”
“Good Enough” kicks off the EP with effervescence and wry self-awareness. Molly’s bluegrass roots are on proud display: her nimble acoustic guitar is joined by a rolling chorus of strings as she ponders the concept of satisfaction. “The idea for ‘Good Enough’ was inspired by writing songs––just never feeling like they are finished and wanting to work and work on them,” Molly says. “It’s also rooted in the discomfort of being a musician in general, having some doubts in the back of my mind about whether or not I and my music are good enough.” Ultimately, the song urges self-reliance and trust. “It’s about finding that place where success and what people say doesn’t matter,” she says. “You’re just satisfied for yourself.”
If “Good Enough” is bluegrass reassurance, second track “You Didn’t Call My Name” is genre-defying grace. Molly’s guitar sets a dreamy, roots-pop pace as she sings achingly about missed opportunities. “I wrote the song right before I left California,” she remembers. “I was feeling a lot of things were unfinished there.”
Even as she stuns listeners with her original songs and collects songwriting awards, Molly’s identity as a guitarist and vocalist influences how she writes. “I think my songwriting goes into who I am as a musician,” she explains. “Writing songs inspires different things on guitar, and vice versa.”
Frenetic “Save This Heart” is a perfect example of Molly’s process. “I came up with the guitar part, and then the words and story started falling into place because the guitar had an urgency to it,” she says. “It’s a song that came out of guitar playing first.” The track is a mesmerizing showcase of Molly’s clawhammer guitar mastery. Even when she could easily fall back on the magic of her fingers, she never shortchanges listeners lyrically: “Your letters get shorter, days get longer / I call across the border, it’s static on the line / Save this heart of mine,” vividly captures the panic of realizing you might be too late.
Molly had the melody for “Friend and a Friend” for years before settling on its traveling musician storyline. Reveling in its bluegrass bones, the song builds, growing bigger and stronger like the “friend and a friend” fanbase she’s singing about. Instrumental “Super Moon” exudes the spontaneity of the song’s recording process: Molly and drummer Jano Rix had never played the tune together before, and their virtuosic chemistry is a joy.
“Lightning in a Jar” breathes new life into a familiar metaphor, and Molly says the moving portrait of nostalgia may be her favorite track on the EP. Her haunting vocals steal ears away from her subtly brilliant playing, underscoring just how much of a triple threat she truly is. “I was thinking about when I was a kid, growing up and visiting my grandparents in Illinois,” she says. “It was a totally different environment than California. It was a magical time, and I was just trying to capture it––my childhood memories.” EP closer “Walden” rearranges Thoreau lines and mixes them with Molly’s own to create stunning musical commentary on impermanence. “I was thinking a lot about climate change,” she says. “In California, we are dealing with really big fires, and it’s so sad. I know people whose houses have burned down. I was thinking about how we relate to the planet.”
When asked what she hopes listeners experience listening to Rise, Molly doesn’t hesitate: “I hope it can bring comfort to and move people. I wrote some of these songs to try to bring positivity to tough situations. Really, I just want to bring people joy.”

This album contains no booklet.