TOGETHER ALONE

WHILE LOCKDOWN HAS prevented many of us from doing some of our favorite things, ruby-crowned bluegrass princess Molly Tuttle used the time to select an eclectic batch of covers, learn how to use Pro Tools and track her new album, …But I’d Rather Be With You (Compass). She worked remotely with Los Angeles–based producer Tony Berg, whose session-guitar, arrangement and production credits include Peter Gabriel, Eric Johnson and Charlie Sexton. Tuttle lifted the poignant album title from a lyric in “Standing on the Moon,” from the Grateful Dead’s final studio album, 1989s Built to Last. It’s a nod to her roots in the San Francisco Bay Area, but Tuttle adopted Nashville as her home many moons ago, and in March the combination of a devastating tornado tearing through Music City and the global pandemic created the perfect storm that led her to seek solace in familiar tunes, while sheltering in place.

It’s always interesting to see what a true triple threat like Tuttle chooses to do with cover tunes, both in terms of her selections and the degree of, she plucked tunes from seemingly every genre and era, sticking to the charts in some cases and cutting loose in others. Fans of Tuttle’s EP — which brought her not only recognition but also Instrumentalist of the Year honors at the 2018 Americana Music Awards, and a pair of trophies for the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Guitar Player of the Year award in 2017 and 2018 — will be happy to hear the champion flatpicker rip bluegrass licks to shreds within the context of Yeah Yeah Yeah’s dance-floor anthem “Zero” and Rancid’s punk rocker “Olympia, WA.” Those who dug the singer-songwriter aesthetic Tuttle displayed on her 2019 debut LP, , will like the way she serves the National’s salty slice of Americana “Fake Empire” and the aforementioned Dead missive with stellar sensitivity. And everyone should appreciate her crosspicking prowess on her adventurous adaptation of the Rolling Stones’ psychedelic ditty “She’s a Rainbow.” We got Tuttle on the phone to talk us through her process.