Emerging Artist, Female Vocalist, and Guitar Player of the Year,
First Female to Ever Receive This Nomination
Nashville, TN — Award-winning songwriter and virtuoso instrumentalist Molly Tuttle turns a new corner with Rise, her first release as a solo artist, which debuted at #2 on Billboard’s Bluegrass Albums chart. Produced by Kai Welch, the seven-song EP was independently released on June 2nd, and celebrated with a sold-out release show at Nashville’s Station Inn. On July 26th, the International Bluegrass Music Association announced the final nominees for their 2017 International Bluegrass Music Awards naming Molly Tuttle in three categories: Emerging Artist, Female Vocalist, and Guitar Player of the Year. The instrumentation nomination is especially weighted as Molly is the first female ever to be nominated in this category. Rolling Stone Country has the full list of nominees here.
Already a familiar face in bluegrass circles and folk festivals, where she’s been performing since the age of eleven, Tuttle widens her reach with Rise. “I wanted to push outside the box,” she says of the EP, whose songs mix the fiery fretwork of her acoustic guitar with banjo, fiddle, drums, pump organ, electric guitar, and other flourishes. “It was a good step to finding my own sound, and not staying tied to the traditional bluegrass sound. I grew up playing bluegrass and I still love it, but I’m influenced by other styles of music, too. I really wanted to create something original.”
Written during a period of intense change that found Tuttle moving from California to Boston to Nashville, Rise covers a wide swath of ground, showing the full range of its maker’s abilities. She writes every song here, singing them in a voice that’s both pure and pointed. On an album that also features appearances by several all-stars of the roots music world – including Kathy Kallick, Darrell Scott, The Milk Carton Kids, and Sarah Jarosz’s longtime cellist, Nathaniel Smith – it’s the 24 year-old Tuttle who shines the brightest.
With Rise, Molly Tuttle cements her place in the roots-music community. Recorded in engineer Erick Jaskowiack’s studio outside of Nashville, the record is a tribute not only to her instrumental, vocal and songwriting chops, but her storytelling ability, too. Tuttle has never defined her ambitions so clearly, and with Rise, she’s moving upward.
“I took the title from a line in Walden from Thoreau, where he compares the human spirit to water,” she says of the EP. “He writes, ‘The life in us is like the water in the river. It may rise this year higher than man has ever known it.’ That feels really relevant to me. It describes how I’m feeling with my music, and where I’m at with creating my own sound, and where we’re at in the world right now. I knew it needed to be the title of the record.”
For more information, please visit https://www.mollytuttlemusic.
On tour:
Aug. 5 – Sugar Maple Festival – Madison, WI
Aug. 12 – Grand Targhee Bluegrass Festival – Alta, WY
Aug. 16 – West Whately Chapel – West Whately, MA
Aug. 17 – Town Crier Cafe – Beacon, NY
Aug. 18 – Rockwood Music Hall – New York, NY
Aug. 19 – Long Island Bluegrass Festival – Copiague, NY
Sept. 7 – Theatre On The Green – Cheraw, SC
Sept. 8 – Motorco Music Hall – Durham, NC
Sept. 9 – Mountain Song Festival – Brevard, NC
Sept. 15 – AmericanaFest – Nashville, TN
Sept. 22 – Watermelon Park Festival – Berryville, VA
Sept. 24 – Amesbury Music Festival – Amesbury, MA
Sept. 29 – IBMA Wide Open Bluegrass Festival – Raleigh, NC
Oct. 7 – 3 Sisters Music Festival – Chattanooga, TN
Oct. 19 – Blue Rock Studios – Wimberley, TX
Oct. 21 – Bloomin Bluegrass Festival – Farmers Branch, TX
Nov. 3 – Stoughton Opera House – Stoughton, WI
Nov. 16 – Fingerlakes Live – Geneva, NY
Nov. 17 – Hudson Valley Bluegrass Assoc. – Poughkeepsie, NY
Nov. 18 – Fire In The Kitchen Concert Series – Madison, CT
Jan. 20 – Calliope: Pittsburgh Folk Music Society – Pittsburgh, PA
Mar. 10 – DC Bluegrass Festival – Tyson’s Corner, VA