Molly Tuttle

The Nashville-dwelling Picker Is An Award-winning Bluegrass Virtuoso And Songwriting Force To Be Reckoned With. Tg Talks To The Doubly Talented Molly Tuttle

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Molly Tuttle’s acoustic playing is, without hidden asterisk or clarification, among the best we’ve heard. A virtuoso picker and Berklee graduate, she has taken the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Instrumentalist Of The Year prize for guitar for the last two years running. Our US sister magazine Guitar World described the effect as “like listening to two guitarists at once” and we’d agree. For evidence, check out her version of Townes Van Zandt’s White Freight Liner Blues on YouTube, in which she plays both the fiddle and guitar sections, while also singing.

Tuttle is more than a fine picker, though. Her duality is represented by debut album When You’re Ready. Produced by Ryan Hewitt (The Avett Brothers, The Lumineers), it’s a songwriting vehicle first-and-foremost, taking influence as much from the likes of Aimee Mann, Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell, as her bluegrass background. Those ’grass roots do run deep, though. A Bay Area kid, Tuttle got her start early via her father – a multiinstrumentalist and one of the most respected bluegrass tutors in the region.