Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway talk about Waterville show

Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway plan to perform Thursday, July 25, at the Waterville Opera House. Chelsea Rrochelle photo

Ever since I did an interview with Alison Krauss when she and Union Station made an appearance in central Maine many years ago,, I’ve developed a fondness for bluegrass acts. So when I heard that Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway was coming to the Waterville Opera House I pursued a phone interview with the singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist front-person.

Like Krauss, Tuttle has released solo albums (“When You’re Ready, … but I’d rather be with you,” and an EP called “Rise”) as well as two band albums (2022’s “Crooked Tree,” which won a Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album and earned Tuttle a Best New Artist nomination) and the latest CD City of Gold for which she is currently supporting.

Where Krauss wowed bluegrass fans with her fiddle playing, Tuttle’s guitar work is captivating her genre and fellow musicians alike, and will be on full display when she and her live band take the stage on July 25. I began the interview by asking where she was calling from.
A: Actually, I have a day off in Salt Lake City.

Q: So, you’re out on the tour now?
A: Yeah.

Q: Have you ever performed in Maine before?
A: Yeah I have, quite a few times. We were in Portland last fall for our album release tour and I’ve played in Portland a bunch. That’s kind of the main town that I’ve gone to in Maine to play music.

Q: Well, this time you’re coming into the Waterville Opera House where Joan Baez stood on that stage and proclaimed that it was one of the best-sounding halls she’d ever been in.
A: Oh, cool!

Q: Your latest album is City of Gold, when did that come out?
A: We released it last summer so it’s about a year old.

Q: And how long have you been making music?
A: I started playing music when I was 8 years old. I’ve been touring, roughly, since I went to Nashville about nine years ago.

Q: Well, I’ve got to say that the sound you and your band put together is really tight and I do like the fact that there’s such a great variety in the 13 tracks that make up this album. As a listener, you don’t know what’s coming next and that’s always a good thing.
A: Yeah, keep ’em guessing.

Q: Is this reflective of what you’re like in a concert?
A: Yeah, I mean we play mostly kind of original material off of this album and then another album of ours is called Crooked Tree — we play a lot of songs off of that, and then we do a few covers, as well. Things get a little more, I guess you could say, psychedelic at the shows.

Q: How so?
A: We stretch out songs, jam a little bit, but yeah pretty much what you hear on there is what we sound like.

Q: Seeing you have a few albums out, is it hard putting together a set?
A: Sometimes, yeah; we definitely get into a flow with a certain set that we have going but we really do try to mix it up. We’re always kind of working up new stuff, going back and seeing what songs we haven’t played in a while. And we’re always thinking about “What’s a cool song that we can bring out in this location?” if we think of any songs that have a particular meaning to the place that we’re playing.

Q: Oh, cool. Now seeing City of Gold came out about a year ago, are you working on something new?
A: Well, I’m writing new songs all the time. I haven’t gone back into the studio, but as a band we have recorded a couple new originals and some new covers that we’ll be putting out later this year, but not a full-length project yet.

Q: How do you pick out a song to cover, just out of curiosity?
A: Just one that kind of speaks to me. If I hear a song, I’m like “Ooh, I want to sing that!” I listen to a lot of music and sometimes certain songs jump out at me. It’s always fun to think about, “Is this a song that we could really put our own spin on and make our own version totally different from the original?” — a cover that people wouldn’t expect, it’s always fun to do that.

Q: How long does this tour you’re on run?
A: My current tour goes up through this weekend and then we do go home for a couple of days, then we have a few weekend runs coming up; but we’ve been on tour for a long time — this is probably our longest stretch of the year that we’ve been out.

Q: Do you find touring enjoyable?
A: Well, I love performing, I love seeing new towns and being out with my band, we’re all friends, so, yeah, I have fun with touring; it can be exhausting but it’s still fun, yeah.

Q: I imagine getting out on the stage helps recharge the batteries.
A: Yeah, definitely!

Q: Is there anything you haven’t done yet, musically speaking, that you’d like to do?
A: Oh yeah, there are always venues I’d like to play. We’re headlining the Ryman in Nashville later this year and I’m really excited about that. I’ve played on that stage but I’ve never done my own show there so that should be super fun.

Q: Is there anything that you’d like to pass on to the folks reading this article.
A: Oh, just that we’re excited to be coming up there — sounds like it’s a really cool place to get to play, and I hope people come out and enjoy the show.

Lucky Clark, a 2018 “Keeping the Blues Alive” Award winner, has spent more than 50 years writing about good music and the people who make it. He can be reached at luckyc@myfairpoint.net if you have any questions, comments or suggestions.

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