Here Comes Sunshine: Molly Tuttle Turns Another Corner

By Kevin Murphy Wilson • Photos By Ebru Yildiz 

Molly Tuttle is a Nashville-based singer, songwriter, guitar player, banjo picker, and music teacher, who is becoming increasingly popular all over the world. Her robust catalog features two consecutive Grammy-winning albums that have helped propel her to the forefront of the modern acoustic music scene. Over the years, Tuttle’s many high-profile collaborators and co-conspirators have included Sheryl Crow, Billy Strings, Nathaniel Rateliff, Ketch Secor, and Ringo Starr. In her spare time, Tuttle even acts as a spokesperson for the National Alopecia Areata Foundation. We recently caught up with the genre-bending artist for a quick chat about her craft and the superb new LP entitled So Long Little Miss Sunshine, among other things. Read on, then be sure to check out Molly Tuttle’s co-headlining tour with Maggie Rose that lands the pair back in Louisville on May 14 for an intimate performance at Mercury Ballroom.

VOICE-TRIBUNE: What led you to become a music-maker in the first place?

Molly Tuttle: “My dad is a musician, too, and he was my first guitar teacher when I was eight years-old. 

He was a full-time music teacher the whole time I was growing up and taught at a music store that had these teaching rooms in the back of the store. So yeah, he brought me home a guitar one day because I had been saying I wanted to learn and then he started teaching me how to play simple fiddle tunes and bluegrass standards and that’s sort of what got me started.”

VT: I heard that you grew up in Palo Alto, CA. Was the spirit of the Merry Pranksters and the Grateful Dead still alive and well when you were coming of age?

MT: “Yeah, definitely. I feel like so much about it I didn’t even realize until later, but, like, the bluegrass scene, which is what I was kind of around a lot growing up, was heavily influenced by the Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia’s bluegrass work and you know, David Grisman, of course, and Peter Rowan. When I was in middle school I remember my music teacher was really into the Grateful Dead and we had a bluegrass band in middle school and we kind of played the more 

Dead-type repertoire, I guess. So many of the songs I used to sing as a kid had become popular within bluegrass circles through Jerry Garcia’s bluegrass stuff.”

VT: That’s fantastic. I grew up in Lexington, KY which had its own share of legendary musicians hanging around, including the late great J.D. Crowe. It is also home to the John Jacob Niles Center for American Music. So, I’m wondering what sort of influence Appalachian artists from this side of the country might have had on your development? 

MT: “Yeah, I mean, I listened to so much music from Appalachia. One of my biggest heroes growing up was Hazel Dickens. She was probably my first really big musical hero. When I was 12 or 13, I started listening to her music all the time and learning all of her songs, trying to sing just like she did. And she came out to California to play at Hardly Strictly in San Francisco, which is a big free festival that they have in Golden Gate Park. So, I got to see her play there along with some other acts from the East like Ralph Stanley and Earl Scruggs. I feel like, too, around the house, we just listened to so much traditional bluegrass and so much old time music. I loved, like, Ola Belle Reed, Cousin Emmy. They were two of my favorites, kind of in the old time realm. Roscoe Holcomb as well. 

But yeah, when I finally got to go to the Southeast for the first time, it was so cool. I got to go to Clifftop, when I was 14 or 15, with my dad, which is where they hold an old time festival in West Virginia. And it was really cool just to get to go to the region that all this great music came from, for the first time. 

It was very eye-opening.” 

VT: You have released quite a few projects, with a diverse crowd of collaborators. What made the writing and recording of the So Long Little Miss Sunshine material special to you? 

MT: “You know, it’s kind of like, on my last couple records before that, Crooked Tree and City of Gold, I was intentionally trying to make records that, you know, paid tribute to the bluegrass tradition I grew up with and my family roots in that music. My grandfather was a banjo player, and he sort of brought bluegrass into my family, so I just wanted to make records that he would be really proud of, and that kind of reflected that musical heritage that I have. But then with this new record, I felt like it was time for me to kind of stretch the boundaries and experiment with some different sounds and not really stay tied to any specific genres. So I had all these songs I’d been writing for years that didn’t really fit on my two projects before that. 

They weren’t really in that traditional bluegrass realm. So I was really excited to finally go in and record all of them and just kind of, you know, see what I could come up with without any, like, specific sound in mind that I was going for.” 

VT: Apart from your growing number of originals and the traditional tunes you’ve always incorporated into your repertoire, there are some really lovely cover versions of songs that you have made your own, such as “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” and “White Rabbit.” How do you approach those, like, do you keep a running list of stuff you’d like to take on eventually, or is it often a spontaneous decision to try something different on for size? 

MT: “I do, yeah, I often have like a list of songs that I’d like to learn and work up with a band, especially now that we’re going into festival season and playing a lot of shows. I love working up new covers and I feel like it’s a really fun way to just kind of draw the audience in whether or not it’s a song they’ve heard before, but if it is, it’s kind of a way to connect with fans over shared love of other artists.” 

VT: It seems like all of your hard work and determination is paying off these days. Is it somewhat surreal to now have two new signature Martin guitars that bear your name, a variety of IBMA and Grammy Awards, AND a friendship with a Beatle? 

MT: “Yes! Those are not things I could have expected to happen when I first started out. 

It’s all just kind of crazy.” 

For more information visit mollytuttlemusic.com or mercuryballroom.com.