[music]

Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. Music is our jam here at All Of It, so we pay attention to the Grammy Awards which are happening this Sunday. Now, intellectually and spiritually, we know there's not the best when it comes to art, but it is an opportunity to use the award ceremony as a way to recognize some great work. Since the nominations were announced, we've been speaking to many of the nominees, including blues singer Bettye LaVette, the folk duo, The Milk Carton Kids, and R&B singer Emily King.

Coming up on the show tomorrow we'll hear from Brandy Clark and Noah Kahan. Today my Grammy-nominated guest is Molly Tuttle. This year she's up for Best Bluegrass Album, a category she won last year. This time she's up for her fourth studio album called City of Gold. Let's take a listen to Molly and her band, Golden Highway. This is Next Rodeo.

[MUSIC - Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway: Next Rodeo]

Well, this ain't my first rodeo

Been staring down the barrel since I left home

Through the highs and lows and the hurts like hell

Still reaching for the ring on the carousel

I've been down this trail a time or two

Knocked out, fenced in, but I broke through

Life ain't fair and you can't fight it

So take it by the horns and ride it

Woah, got to giddy up and go

'Cause there's a cowboy just like you

Waiting at the end of every road

Oh no, ain't got no time to do-si-do

Gotta get on to my next rodeo

Alison Stewart: A review in American Songwriter said Tuttle et al capture the energy and spirit of the traditional genre just to thread in their own imaginative narratives and tongue-in-cheek tales. Molly Tuttle joins us today to talk about City of Gold. Molly, welcome to the show.

Molly Tuttle: Hi. Thanks for having me.

Alison Stewart: Your first two albums, I suggest people go check them out, they were more in the singer-songwriter-esque category, if we have to talk about categories. The last two albums of yours, solidly bluegrass.

Molly Tuttle: Yes.

Alison Stewart: What felt different about working on a bluegrass album this time as compared to the previous one?

Molly Tuttle: This time was different because I had been touring with my band, Golden Highway, for a solid year. We did over 100 shows after we released Crooked Tree. I feel like we really developed this unique sound as a band that we didn't have before because when I recorded my previous record, Crooked Tree, I didn't really have a solid band set up. I knew I wanted to record all these bluegrass songs that I'd been writing during the pandemic, and I had this band name in my head, Golden Highway, and this idea for a project that really paid tribute to the music I grew up playing and grew up with.

My grandfather was a banjo player, my dad plays bluegrass music, so it really felt like this genre is part of who I am and part of my upbringing. After putting out that record, I felt like this special energy with my bandmates, and we had cultivated this community around us, and I knew I wanted to go back into the studio and record songs that were inspired by our year out on the road together.

Alison Stewart: The first song on the album is El Dorado, referencing the City of Gold. You've talked about how you took a field trip as a kid to Coloma, California, to learn about the Gold Rush. What is it about that trip that stayed with you?

Molly Tuttle: Well, I remember that trip so vividly. It was just one of those times as a kid where I remember panning for gold. I remember this old minor-type guy, and he was wearing this gold nugget around his neck on a chain, and he was teaching us to pan for gold. It felt like we were just transported into this other world. A lot of bluegrass songs that I grew up with deal with the history of the American South. I felt like I wanted to dive into the history that I grew up with out in California and out in the West, and see if I could write my own California bluegrass song because most people associate this genre with Kentucky and Tennessee. I live in Tennessee now, but I love coming back to my home state.

Alison Stewart: Let's take a listen to El Dorado from Molly Tuttle.

[MUSIC - Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway: El Dorado]

I'm Gold Rush Kate from the Golden State

With a nugget around my neck

I keep the red lights burning bright from here to Hell and back

I've dug for silver and for gold from Boulder up to Haines

When I hit Coloma, boys, I made my final claim

Crossed the High Sierras in the spring of '48

And every man with a shovel and pan

Has stumbled through my gates

Behind these doors, whiskey pours and lovin' flows like wine

Miners boast of mother lodes they'll dig or else die trying

El Dorado, woo-hoo-hoo

They come from far and wide to quell the fever in their souls

It haunts their brain, they've gone insane

For the glimmer of the gold

The devil must have drug 'em here down a one-way path

'Cause when you hit Coloma, boys, you never make it back

There's Redwood Bill, he can drink his fill

And so can John the Rover

Bad Luck Dave is in his grave, his gold dust days are over

They fill their pans with blood and sand and call to God upstairs

But in the golden country, boys, the Lord don't hear your prayers

El Dorado, woo-hoo-hoo

Alison Stewart: That's El Dorado from Molly Tuttle. She's nominated for Best Bluegrass Album, the Sunday's Grammy Awards. We have El Dorado. There's a song, San Joaquin, Yosemite. You've mentioned you're from California. What does being a Californian mean to you?

Molly Tuttle: California, as a state to me, it feels like a place where people come to searching for something. That went into the title of the album, City of Gold. City of Gold to me, it's this dream that you have and you're trying to strike it rich in one way or another. For me, music has always been my city of gold, something that I've chased after and dreamed about. I feel like when you go back and read books about California, it's always this land of promise that people come to looking for something.

Alison Stewart: When you think about it, you've mentioned that bluegrass music is in your family, but you grew up in Palo Alto, California. How did bluegrass music come to be a thing in the Tuttle family?

Molly Tuttle: My grandfather was a farmer. He lived in Illinois in this really rural town called Yorkville, Illinois. It's only 45 minutes from Chicago, but it feels like you're in a totally different universe. It's just corn fields as far as the eye can see. He was actually in the Air Force and stationed down South, and heard Hank Williams and then got into listening to the Grand Ole Opry. Through that, discovered bluegrass music, loved Flatt and Scruggs and Bill Monroe. He started playing the banjo. When my dad was growing up, they had a Tuttle family band out on the farm, and my dad learned to play the guitar and the fiddle. They would go to bluegrass festivals throughout Illinois.

Then when my dad was a little older, he decided to move out to California after he graduated college, and just ended up in Palo Alto. People don't really think of Silicon Valley as a hub for bluegrass music, but at the time there was a lot of great music. Tony Rice was living out in California in the Bay Area, and he's one of the big guitar heroes in bluegrass music. There was this really happening scene, so it drew my dad out there, and he ended up teaching bluegrass music full time. He still does that in Palo Alto. He's been teaching since the '80s.

He taught me how to play guitar growing up, and we used to go to bluegrass festivals in Northern California. My two younger brothers also play music. Just grew up with it. I get asked that a lot. How did you find this type of music growing up in the heart of Silicon Valley? It's a little unexpected, but if you look into it, there is some great bluegrass music that's come out of California.

Alison Stewart: Let's listen to another track from City of Gold. We'll stay with the California theme. This is San Joaquin. Tell us a little bit about the story you're telling in this song.

Molly Tuttle: I wrote the whole album with Ketch Secor. We were looking at these train lines going through California, and we discovered this one called the San Joaquin that goes through the San Joaquin Valley. We decided to write a train song, like a California train song about smuggling some illicit substances [chuckles] down through the state. Not illicit anymore, but maybe in the time where this song came from. [laughs]

Alison Stewart: Let's take a listen.

[MUSIC - Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway: San Joaquin]

Riding on the San Joaquin

Bringing in some Humboldt green

Watch out for that bully, he'll pick your pockets clean

Toss you in Tehachapi

When I get to Richmond, I'll be gold

Soon as this suitcase is sold

Till then I'm rolling down the line

Just looking for the next high time

Riding on the San Joaquin

Well, the San Joaquin is a mighty good line

There's a mighty good chance, she'll blow your mind

Each time you hear that whistle blow

I'm smuggling in another load

Riding on the San Joaquin

Bringing in some Humboldt green

I'm just rolling down the line Looking for the next high time

Riding on the San Joaquin

Alison Stewart: Molly, I have to ask you about the pace. How do you keep up that pace live in concert?

Molly Tuttle: Oh my gosh, it was a struggle. In the studio, we were just like, "We know we need to make this one a barn burner. We just want to show what we've got and play it as fast as humanly possible." When we play it live, it almost sometimes gets too fast. It'll speed up at times and we have to rein it in. It's like a train. Once you get on it, it's hard to get off. I think that's just part of this music, where there's an aspect to it that it's just you're just showing what you got. It definitely can become a runway train at times.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Molly Tuttle. She's Grammy nominated for the album City of Gold in Best Bluegrass Album category. You said you've been playing since a kid. Your dad teaches. You did go to Berklee College of Music in Boston, which is a fantastic school. What's an assignment you remember still to this day?

Molly Tuttle: Ooh, I had one that I'll always remember. I was studying guitar mainly. That was my primary instrument. I had this wonderful teacher, Dave Tronzo. I remember one lesson, he kept trying to get me to play over this interesting chord progression he picked out. He wanted me to play specific notes for any music theory nerds out there. He wanted me to play a half step away from the root note of the chord, which sounded to me really dissonant and I didn't like. I would cringe every time I played this note or played the scale he was trying to get me to play.

He really dug into it and was like, "Why don't you like the sound of that note over this chord?" I said, "It just sounds weird to me. I'm not used to it." He dug deeper and was like, "Why does it sound weird to you?" I think it was something that my ears hadn't adjusted to. He was like, "That feeling of discomfort is the root of all prejudice in the world. We're uncomfortable with things that we haven't really encountered before, and you need to really work on getting rid of that feeling and embracing all types of music." That really opened my mind too. I think I came into Berklee just feeling like, "This is what I do. This is the kind of music I'd play." Part of me was a little bit closed off to new experiences.

Alison Stewart: Let's listen to another song from the album City of Gold, this one. This is Alice in the Bluegrass. This is a reimagining of Alice in Wonderland, right?

Molly Tuttle: Yes, totally. Combines two things that I loved as a kid, Alice in Wonderland and bluegrass. It's like if Lewis Carroll was from Kentucky. [laughs]

Alison Stewart: Let's listen to Alice in the Bluegrass.

[MUSIC - Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway: Alice in the Bluegrass]

Come gather around folks for a story I'll tell

About a girl who tripped through the bottom of a well

Woke up in a dream with a curious habit

Chasing a little white rabbit

Well, she landed with a thump by the field mouse door

Said "This don't look like Kentucky anymore"

Knock three times and her mind swung open

Alice had awoken

So she danced all night with a bottle in her hand

Lost in the backwoods Wonderland

Toadstool fiddle and a cigarette bow

Where'd you come from? Alice, why'd you go?

Then old snapping turtle peaked out of his shell

Said "Little girl, you don't look too well

Take a little swig and a little bitty swallow

You'll feel three times smaller"

Then the glow-worm sitting on the caterpillar tractor

Gave her a smoke, some strange tobacco

The doodle bug said, "You can't go back there

You'll be ours forever after"

Alison Stewart: There are so many things to love about that song. Not to mention the audio callback to Jefferson Airplane.

Molly Tuttle: Yes, we started covering White Rabbit. I had already written that Alice in the Bluegrass song, and I was like, "I think we need to start teasing this by playing White Rabbit." It became one of our favorites to do in the set. Now we medley those to go from one to the next, have this whole little Alice in Wonderland segment.

Alison Stewart: Molly, it's such a fantastical story and such great imagery. I don't know if people who don't know your story, your last album dealt with a lot of personal stuff about being a woman living with alopecia your whole life. What was that experience like playing those songs and talking about it at every interview? I'm sorry.

Molly Tuttle: It's been really great for me. It was something that like a young adult and as a teenager, I just felt like I had this block, where it was so hard for me to talk about. It was so hard for me to take off my wig in front of people and really be open. The more I started doing it, the easier it became, and it was really healing for me. I think, ultimately, I just wanted to help other people feel more comfortable in their skin. I wanted to connect with people with alopecia, but also anyone who has something similar. Then, I quickly realized that it was also really helping me feel more comfortable in my skin as well. My song Crooked Tree is still really special to me, and that's when we still play live all the time. Sometimes, I'll take off my wig before playing it. It's just become this special moment that I love to have with the people who come to our shows.

Alison Stewart: I'm sure there's so many people it means so much too. Thank you also for answering that question. I know you've had to answer it.

Molly Tuttle: No, I love talking about it.

Alison Stewart: We're going to go out on the song, Where Did All the Wild Things Go, from your Grammy nominated album, City of Gold. Tell us a little bit about this song.

Molly Tuttle: This one is inspired by these funny scenes that I've experienced going out to music festivals. I go to so many festivals, where I play over the summer, and some of them get pretty wild. This one's asking a question like, "What happened? Why are we all settling down now?" I think entering my 30s especially, it feels like everyone's giving up the wild ways that we had in our early 20s. This is one that I wrote to try to rile up the audiences at our show, basically.

Alison Stewart: My guest has been Molly Tuttle. She is nominated for Best Bluegrass Album for City of Gold. Molly, thank you for the time. Have a great weekend.

Molly Tuttle: Yes, thanks so much for having me. It was great talking with you.

Alison Stewart: This is Where Did All the Wild Things Go.

[MUSIC - Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway: Where Did All the Wild Things Go]

Do you like to get down low with the doghouse

Or high on the hog when the Friday night lights go down?

Can you howl like a greyhound?

Do you like greens, and I don't mean collards?

Hollered, swallered, blown your last dollar at dawn

And do you like to tie one on?

Now the street's full of suits with hundred-dollar haircuts

I used to cut loose, now it's uptight, airbrushed

Scratchin' my head 'cause I really, really wanna know

Where did all the wild things go?

Alison Stewart: Molly Tuttle is nominated for Best Bluegrass Album for the Sunday's Grammy Awards. There's more All Of It on the way. I'll meet you right back here after the news.

[MUSIC - Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway: Where Did All the Wild Things Go]

Now you're goin' off the deep end

Do you like jammin', ramblin', gamblin'

Slammin' 'em back 'til you don't know what you're standin' on

Passed out in a port-a-john?

Now this town's been tamеd like a bear

 

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