I will admit to not knowing a great deal about Molly Tuttle until I was handed an assignment to review her 2019 album “When You’re Ready”. This was one of those simply delicious moments when you discover something new, something that clearly has longevity and therefore something that you know you’re going to be able to delight in for many moons to come. I then went to see her play at Bush Hall in London later that year and was simply blown away with the virtuosity of her performance.
This clip is taken from the Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival from 2019, which takes place every year – well, when a certain pandemic allows – up among the Catskills Mountains in New York State. Tuttle is joined on stage by Billy Strings, an equally virtuosic talent as you will see from the song they perform, “I’m Sittin’ On Top Of The World”, a bluegrass standard first recorded in 1930. My colleague, Tim Newby, recently described Strings as “one of the new leaders of the progressive jamgrass movement” and with the hatful of awards this pair have already received in recognition of their talents – including Grammys – it is safe to say that the future of bluegrass is assured in their hands.
Molly and Billy were room mates and they always seem to have a lot of fun playing together. I saw Molly on the Transatlantic Sessions line-up in 2019 and she signed the concert disc I’d bought. She’d recently become the first woman to be named Best Bluegrass guitar player. A really sweet person and a killer guitar player.
That’s brilliant! Yup, safe in their hands, I think!