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Molly Tuttle: Girl Wonder of Bluegrass

by Dwight WordenDecember 2025

Molly Tuttle

Bluegrass music has an honorable history of women taking our music by storm. Back in the day Sally Ann Forester played bass and sang with Bill Monroe in the 1940s. Hazel Dickens, Rose Maddox, and others stand proudly among the founders of our music. The next generation of bluegrass brought us Laurie Lewis, Kathy Kallick, Alison Krauss, Claire Lynch, and many more (whom Molly Tuttle credits as role models). This generation was followed by Sierra Hull, Sara Watkins, Sarah Girosz, and other female standouts who ratcheted everything up another notch. Now, it’s Molly’s turn to take the spotlight.

Molly has it all. Top guitar, banjo, songwriting, vocal skills, and the awards to prove it.

  • Two Grammy Awards including Best Bluegrass Album Crooked Tree in 2023
  • Best new Artist Nominee 2023
  • IBMA Guitar Player of the Year 2017 and 2018—first woman winner ever
  • IBMA Instrumental of the Year 2018
  • IBMA Album of the Year 2023 for Crooked Tree
  • IBMA Song of the Year 2023
  • IBMA Female Vocalist of the Year 2023
  • International Folk Music Award for Album of the Year 2023
  • Grammy nomination for the all-genre Best New Artist at the 65th Grammy Awards
  • Chris Austin Song Writing Award winner

At age 32, Molly is just getting started! Beginning with her family band at age eight, she first performed on stage when she was 11 with father Jack Tuttle. At age 15, she joined the family band, The Tuttles with AJ Lee. She then attended the prestigious Berklee College of Music on a merit scholarship in music and composition as the first ever winner of the Foundation for Bluegrass Music’s Hazel Dickens Scholarship Award. In her spare time, she appeared on A Prairie Home Companion with her dad.

Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway.

While in school at the Berklee College of Music she met and joined the all-female bluegrass group, called the Goodbye Girls, which combined bluegrass, jazz, and Swedish folk music. In 2018, she joined Alison Brown, Missy Raines, Sierra Hull, and Becky Buller in a supergroup. Initially known as the Julia Belles, the group became known as the First Ladies of Bluegrass. In 2021, Tuttle assembled her new “dream” band, Golden Highway, including Shelby Means on bass, Kyle Tuttle on banjo, Bronwyn Keith-Hynes on fiddle, and Dominick Leslie on mandolin, with everyone sharing or supporting vocals. Their award-winning hit, Crooked Tree, was released in 2022, with a follow up album release in 2023.

Tuttle announced the dissolution of Golden Highway in May 2025, with many band members pursuing solo careers, while she revealed a new, all-female band that would begin touring with her in July.

I spoke with Molly for this article. Here is some of what she had to say.

What’s exciting in your life right now?
My life has been pretty exciting lately because I got engaged to my longtime partner Ketch Secor on Thanksgiving! We spent the week in Santa Cruz with both of our families and had the best time celebrating with everyone.
On the music front I was thrilled to be nominated for two Grammy awards this fall for my record So Long Little Miss Sunshine. I poured so much into this new album and it meant a lot to me to see it recognized by The Recording Academy voters!
What are you listening to that motivates and inspires you?
I usually have one or two albums that I’m listening to on repeat, and my latest musical obsession has been the record Getting Killed by Geese. I haven’t been this excited about a new band discovery in a while and I can’t wait to see them live someday! I have also really been enjoying the new Lily Allen record West End Girl. When I first listened to it I felt like I was reading a book that I couldn’t put down because I needed to find out what happened next!
Are there any exciting projects coming up?
I have been writing some new songs that I’m really excited about and also recording a couple alternate versions of songs off my latest record. Next year is gonna be a lot of fun with some exciting tours coming together but there’s not too much I can announce at the moment so you’ll have to stay tuned! In the coming months I’m hitting the road with Marty Stuart for some co-bill shows, which is gonna be a blast.
Looking over the trajectory of your remarkable yet still young career, and looking back, were you having more fun back in the day with your family band, or now in the big spotlight? Any surprises that you’ve learned along the way, comparing what you thought stardom would be versus what it actually is?
I think I’ve become a lot more self assured as the years have gone by so that lets me have more fun on and off stage when I’m playing music. When I think back to the days of playing with my family I certainly was having fun but I was also still trying to figure out who I was and with that came some insecurities that made it hard to fully be in the moment when I was performing. I still treasure any time I get to play with my family though, which happens every so often—we were all together this past week for Thanksgiving and had the best jam session.

See Molly Tuttle in concert on Saturday, December 6 at the House of Blues, 1055 5th Ave., 7pm.

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