Vilar Performing Arts Center/Courtesy Photo
Molly Tuttle’s new, all-female band debuts Friday night at Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater as part of the GoPro Mountain Games evening concert lineup. She performs with co-headliners The California Honeydrops and openers Band of Gringos.
“Our audiences will experience three completely different but equally compelling musical experiences in one night,” said Dave Dressman, vice president of The Amp. “Together, these acts show the incredible range of American music.”
Band of Gringos, an emerging jam band out of San Diego, kicks off the show with its soulful, psychedelic sounds, featuring John-Mayer-meets-Jimi-Hendrix guitar solos.
The California Honeydrops deliver infectious optimism with a blend of blues, R&B and funk.
Virtuoso guitarist and singer-songwriter Tuttle is a two-time Grammy-award-winning musician whose “City of Gold” and “Crooked Tree” were named best bluegrass album.
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“When I moved to Nashville, I didn’t have a concrete sound of my own, and I’ve explored a lot of different styles of music since moving there,” she said, adding that her last two records stemmed from Nashville’s bluegrass culture. “That’s the music I grew up playing. It’s such a big part of the reason why I wanted to move to Nashville. … I really like the community aspect of the music. I grew up going to jam sessions and bluegrass festivals. They were so much fun. It was a really big social part of my life.”
She wrote many of the songs on “Crooked Tree” during the COVID-19 pandemic with a burst of creativity.
“I’d been wanting to make for a long time but never knew if the time was right,” she said, adding that the album paid tribute to the music she grew up with.
She had always recorded with studio musicians, but after “Crooked Tree,” she toured with her band Golden Highway.
“I thought after playing like a hundred shows, it would be really cool to go into the studio and capture that magic of having played together for so many hours. So that became ‘City of Gold.’ It was another batch of songs that I wrote with the bluegrass band in mind,” she said.
Her EP “Get Into the Wild” became an extension of “City of Gold,” with half covers the band performed on the road and two originals that didn’t make the full-length, award-winning album, along with a reworked version of one of the cuts on the record.
Her new album, “So Long Little Miss Sunshine,” comes out Aug. 15. As more of a solo record that doesn’t feature her band, it’s a departure from the last couple of records.
“It’s more contemporary sounding. It’s less straight-ahead bluegrass, but definitely has some bluegrass elements, as well,” she said. “It’s still very much my guitar playing front-and-center, so a lot of acoustic guitar, and I think it’s a little more pop-oriented and a little more Americana or indie-folk singer-songwriter. There are definitely still some banjos and fiddle, but there are also other sounds like organ and drums you don’t find in a bluegrass band. This is the record I’ve been working towards for a few years now and finally had the songs I felt like were a strong batch of songs to make.”
She just created a new, all-female band, which performs for the first time at The Amp and will be previewing about five songs from the new record.
“It’ll be the first time I’m playing them live, so that’s really exciting for me, and we’ll be doing a bunch of the older material, as well,” she said.
“This triple-header perfectly captures the diversity and quality that the GoPro Mountain Games is known for,” Dressman said. “All three acts embody the festival spirit with their authentic, high-energy performances that bring people together and create lasting memories in our beautiful outdoor venue.”