New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Molly Tuttle performed a solo set of two songs from her and her band Golden Highway's critically acclaimed and Grammy-winning new album, City of Gold - "Alice in the Bluegrass" and "Evergreen, OK" - as well as a cover of Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" (a recording of which she and the band released last year), in a live Paste Studio on the Road session from MerleFest in Window World Hall at Wilkes Community College in Wilkesboro, NC, where they played last month. You can watch all three here:
City of Gold won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album and the International Folk Music Award for Album of the Year; it made last year's best lists from PopMatters, Folk Alley, No Depression, AllMusic, WFUV, and Holler, which calls it Tuttle's "most captivating record yet … A heady 48 minutes of joy, Tuttle is single handedly making bluegrass her own."
The album follows Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway's 2022 record, Crooked Tree, which also won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album. Produced by Tuttle and Jerry Douglas and recorded in Nashville, City of Gold was inspired by Tuttle's near constant touring with Golden Highway and their growth together as musicians and performers, cohering as a band. These 13 tracks - mostly written by Tuttle and Ketch Secor (Old Crow Medicine Show) - capture the electric energy of the band's live shows by highlighting each member's musical strengths. City of Gold also features special guest Dave Matthews on the song "Yosemite."
Tuttle and the band continue their "Down the Rabbit Hole" tour this weekend, with a set at the FreshGrass Festival in Bentonville, Arkansas, on Friday, and head to Texas for a full week of shows on Saturday. For details and tickets, visit nonesuch.com/on-tour.