Summer Sessions Sensation: Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway

EDITOR'S NOTE: A Boston bluegrass band called Barnstar will be the opening act Saturday.

Back in the 1970s when I lived in Boston, there was a feeling I got there that I had never felt before. It was the anticipation that comes with being in the presence of great, great performers. It came over me every time I walked into Fenway Park or the Boston Garden.

The Red Sox in the mid ‘70’s had Jim Rice, Fred Lynn, Yaz, Carlton Fisk. ... The Celtics had John Havlicek, Dave Cowens, Paul Silas, JoJo White. ... The Bruins had Phil Esposito, Gilles Gilbert, Bobby Orr. ...

I could sit in the bleachers at Fenway for $2 and be within conversation distance of the three best outfielders in Major League Baseball. I could sit in the upper rows at the Garden and see the greatest player in the history of pro hockey (Jesus Saves. Orr Gets the Rebound!) or be entranced by the balletic pas de deux of “Hondo” Havlicek and a basketball.

On Saturday evening around 7:30, when Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway come out on stage for the most anticipated set since the Summer Sessions concerts began four years ago, I’ll feel the echo of Fenway when it still had the Green Monster in left field, and The Garden with its parquet floor of Tennessee red oak one night and a sheet of ice the next. By all rights, the audience and the band should all stand at attention for 60 seconds for the National Anthem, and then ...  “Ladies and gentlemen, from California and Nashville by way of the Moon, please welcome ... five of the most explosively talented musicians you will ever see ... Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway!”

And admission is completely free for the concert in A.K. Bissell Park.

Molly Tuttle’s accolades are well known. Five months shy of 30, she has won more awards than most guitar pickers do in a lifetime. The International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) 2017 Guitar Player of the Year. Again in 2018. Americana Music Association Instrumentalist of the Year in 2018. And for 2022, the IBMA has nominated her for Album of the Year (“Crooked Tree” on Nonesuch Records), Guitar Player of the Year, Female Vocalist of the Year, Instrumental Group of the Year, and Entertainer of the Year. The winner in each of these categories will be announced on Sept. 29 in Raleigh, North Carolina.

In reviewing “Crooked Tree” when it was released four months ago, the web journal “Saving Country Music” said “’Crooked Tree’ is Molly Tuttle going ‘Oh, you want a bluegrass album? Well then, here you go...’ and then melting faces in 13 straight original tracks.”

Melting faces! That’s what happened to people who watched the Space-X launch of Falcon Heavy and the successful triple landings of its two side boosters and center core. This new record by Golden Highway, produced by Jerry Douglas and Molly Tuttle, is just as exhilarating and unprecedented.

So ... who are the moving parts of Golden Highway?

, fiddle, from Charlottesville, North Carolina is, like Molly, a graduate of the Berklee School of Music in Boston. Her Boston-based group Mile Twelve won the IBMA 2020 Award for New Artists of the Year. In 2021, she topped that with IBMA’s Fiddle Player of the Year. Her debut solo album, “Fiddler’s Pastime,” co-produced with the Sam Bush Band’s banjo whiz, Wes Corbett, included the combined creative input of Laura Orshaw, Chris Eldridge, Tim O’Brien, Sarah Jarosz, Sierra Hull, James Kee, Jake Stargel, the phenomenal Harry Clark, and Jeff Picker.

The impeccable fiddler Darol Anger says, “Bronwyn’s fiddle is about being present. You can sense the presence of mind, the presence of heart, the presence of the unmistakable Bronwyn in every note she plays. Here’s a musician with something to say.” She is to the fiddle as Molly is to the guitar, and side-by-side on stage, they make you hold your breath.

Shelby Lee Means, bass, from Versailles, Kentucky, won the 2013 IBMA Award for Emerging Artist of the Year and earned a Grammy nomination that same year for her work on Della Mae’s album “This World Oft Can Be.” She is a rarity, a bass player with an angelically powerful voice and a physical presence to match. In a group that can easily put the petal to the metal so heavy you can’t keep up with them, Shelby Means keeps Golden Highway’s feet on the ground.

Kyle Tuttle, banjo, from a different planet somewhere in Georgia, is also a Berklee alum, although he may call it Berserklee. He and Molly are not related, even though they share a surname, but they are most definitely related in musical temperament. The term mischievous frenzy comes to mind. You can see it in their eyes. To grasp the jam-grass freak of nature that is Kyle Tuttle, listen to every cut on his self-produced album “Bobcat.” It’s on YouTube. Then listen to every cut of “Crooked Tree.” Then “Bobcat” again. Then sit in a quiet room with the lights off. Radical.

Then there’s Dominick Leslie on mandolin. From Colorado, Dom also went to Berklee. Do you see a pattern here? He has his own bluegrass unit called Hawktail, and their all-instrumental 2019 album “Place of Growth” is one of the most singularly unique albums I’ve ever heard, in terms of its structural experimentation. It leaves you with a new impression of what “organic” and “natural” mean.

Dominick is as interesting when he talks about playing mandolin as he is when he plays the mandolin.  And when he plays it, he owns it. A couple of years ago, when Ricky Skaggs had shoulder surgery and couldn’t play on stage, Kentucky Thunder brought Dom Leslie in to stand right beside Ricky Skaggs. Skaggs sang, and Leslie shredded.

But the Dominick Leslie deal I find fascinating is what he allows Golden Highway to do with Townes Van Zandt’s “White Freightliner Blues.” The song was the highlight (for me anyway) of Molly Tuttle’s first appearance at Summer Sessions a couple years ago, but that was for the way it flooded me with personal memories I had of Townes in Austin in the late 1980s and early ‘90’s, until he became so debilitated by alcohol that he was like a walking skeleton, where every day was Dios de los Muertos. “White Freightliner” was written and performed by Townes with a melancholy that was as gut-wrenching as an endless drought.

But just wait until you hear Golden Highway kick if off. For Dominick Leslie, “White Freightliner Blues” is a high wire act. With concise chopping, strumming, and melody propulsion, he pushes the tune through a double round of “anything you can do” instrumental breaks by every member of the band until it reaches a rolling boil that leaves you completely giddy. You might see Townes dancing on top of the stage canopy when Golden Highway nears their finale. La calaca comelona, melancholy no more.

Like the Celtics on a roll. Like the Bruins on a power play. Like the Red Sox in a no-hitter. Hungry and gettin' it done. There’s nothing like the interplay of such talented, polished, and happy performers. I hope y’all enjoy this show Saturday evening as much as I will. Thanks again to ORNL-FCU and WDVX for bringing this magic to our humble outdoor stage.

Now let’s fill the place!

John Job is a longtime Oak Ridge resident and frequent contributor to The Oak Ridger.

This article originally appeared on Oakridger: Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway perform free concert Saturday in OR