Molly Tuttle knew she had a great bluegrass band when she put together The Golden Highway two years ago, so soon after touring their first album together last year, the Grammy-winning Crooked Tree, she got busy writing songs for a new album. Ten songs from that new one, City of Gold dominated their big sellout show at the 9:30 Club last week, closing the Eastern leg of their tour.
Tuttle, fresh off a full-show Austin City Limits broadcast, was happy to be making her first appearance at the long-running DC club (which she thought was so named because that’s when all its shows start). Her confidence seemed that much more amped up to fill a rock club, following her previous area show last year, playing the quieter Birchmere across the river in Alexandria, VA.
The new album is something of a road trip into the West, into the old gold mining towns in “El Dorado” or riding an imaginary rail in the “San Joaquin” from Tehachapi to Bakersfield. And she began with its anthem of “a girl as wild as a western town” who “can saddle up, not settle down” in “Evergreen, OK.”
There was little settling down in the typically high-energy show that offered a lot of showcases for the speedy, virtuoso band members, from mandolinist Dominick Leslie, who is also part of the group Hawktail; as well as fiddler Bronwyn Keith-Hynes, Shelby Means on bass, and Kyle Tuttle on banjo.
The two Tuttles do a little stage banter keeping up the mystery of the possible connection shared by their common last name, Married? Siblings? Cousins? Because they come from a genre associated with the South, “We could be more than one,” the banjoist joked, before doing a breakup song “Yosemite,” which some have assumed was really about them. (It’s not, and they’re apparently not related at all).
On the album, Molly’s duet is with Dave Matthews, and there is a touch of jam band enthusiasm undergirding the band’s success. Certainly, their songs seem to share a that genre’s taste for recreational indulgence, as in their tune advocating a “Down Home Dispensary.”
It extended, too, to a mid-show segment all about Lewis Carrol’s kaleidoscopic creation Alice in Wonderland. Tuttle first talks of “what lies behind the looking glass” in her “Stranger Things” before the young heroine takes center stage in her “Alice in the Bluegrass” that leads directly into their cover of the Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit,” propelled by Means’ snaky bassline.
That high point was followed by another, late in the show when she paired her popular song celebrating differences, “Crooked Tree” with her own explanation of feeling like an outcast as a child by being diagnosed with alopecia, which prevented hair from growing. In the spirit of the song, she doffed her lovely long wig to bare her head to the cheers of the crowd—like the long, loud roar of acceptance that followed her gesture on Austin City Limits. Within a few songs, it seemed as natural as can be.
Tuttle is an appealing front woman, with a sincere smile, solid songs, and a voice that earned her a repeat win as Female Vocalist of the Year at the latest International Bluegrass Music Awards. But she is also the first woman to win the group’s Guitar Player of the Year six years ago, a title she also repeated.
The problem with becoming a bigger, amplified band is losing some of her astonishing technique in flatpicking, clawhammer and crosspicking. The mix is such that she blends more into the ensemble’s amplified sound without standing out. And she often steps back to play her solos instead of being out front and more demonstrative with her instrument.
Not until she gathers with the group around a central microphone, the way string bands often did, does her acoustic guitar sound shine through as it ought to. That setup only happened on the final pair of songs that capped the fine show—her own “More Like a River” and the Dylan standard “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” that evolved into a lovely crowd singalong.
SETLIST
Evergreen, OK
El Dorado
Side Saddle
Down Home Dispensary
Next Rodeo
Yosemite
Open Water
Old Man at the Mill
She’ll Change
Stranger Things
Alice in the Bluegrass
White Rabbit
Sleepy-Eyed John
The First Time I Fell in Love
Over the Line
Dooley’s Farm
Catilleja
Where Did All the Wild Things Go?
Crooked Tree
San Joaquin
Take the Journey
More Like a River
You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere
