Athens Area Council for the Arts will host International Bluegrass Music Association female vocalist of the year and fiddle player of the year award winners Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway on Friday, Nov. 11, at 7:30 p.m. at Athens City Middle School. Tickets are general admission seating, though AACA members can reserve seats in advance through the box office. Lobby opens at 6:30 p.m. and doors open for seating at 7 p.m.
Review for Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway:
Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway – her brand-new band of bluegrass virtuosos featuring mandolinist Dominick Leslie, banjoist Kyle Tuttle, fiddle player Bronwyn Keith-Hynes, and bassist Shelby Means – stops in Athens as part of their United States tour in support of Tuttle’s Nonesuch Records debut album “Crooked Tree.”
An award-winning guitarist and songwriter, native Californian Molly Tuttle continues to push her songwriting in new directions and transcend musical boundaries. Since moving to Nashville in 2015, she has worked with many of her peers and heroes in the Americana, folk, and bluegrass communities, winning Instrumentalist of the Year at the 2018 Americana Music Awards. Tuttle’s 2019 debut album, When You're Ready, received critical acclaim, with NPR Music praising its “handsomely crafted melodies that gently insinuate themselves into the memory,” and the Wall Street Journal lauding Tuttle’s “genre-boundary-crossing comfort and emotional preparedness,” calling the record an “invigorating, mature and attention-grabbing first album.”
Tuttle’s accolades also include Folk Alliance International’s honor for Song of the Year for “You Didn’t Call My Name,” from her 2017 Rise EP, and consecutive trophies for the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Guitar Player of the Year; she was the first woman in the history of the IBMA to win that honor. Just recently IBMA named Tuttle female vocalist of the year.
During the pandemic, Tuttle recorded a covers album, “…but i'd rather be with you,” which was released in August 2020. The record, which features guest vocals from Dawes’ Taylor Goldsmith and Old Crow Medicine Show’s Ketch Secor, includes songs by musicians ranging from FKA Twigs to Cat Stevens, Rancid to Karen Dalton, and The National to The Rolling Stones.
Tickets are on sale now and start at $25. Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway is the second of six events in AACA’s Bicentennial Celebration Performance Season. Concertgoers planning to attend more than one series event can purchase discounted tickets via a “Flex Package.”
The remaining series events are Knoxville Symphony Chamber Orchestra Holiday Matinee on Sunday, Dec. 11, at 2 p.m. at Athens City Middle School Auditorium, Cross That River: The Story of a Runaway Slave Who Became a Black Cowboy on Thursday Feb. 9, at 7:30 p.m., Taylor Ashton Trio in the Sue E. Trotter Black Box on Friday March 31, at 7:30 p.m. and American Patchwork Quartet on Friday, May 19, at 7:30 p.m., in the Black Box Theater.