Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway Roll Full Speed into New Album, ‘City of Gold’

Riding a wave of big buzz and bigger awards, bluegrass breakout Molly Tuttle and her band, Golden Highway, are keeping things going with a new album.

City of Gold, out July 21 on Nonesuch Records, follows last year’s Crooked Tree (ND review), which won Best Bluegrass Album at the last Grammy Awards and Album of the Year at the International Folk Music Awards. Tuttle was nominated in the overall Best New Artist category.

City of Gold was produced by Tuttle and Jerry Douglas and recorded at Nashville’s Sound Emporium Studios, with songs inspired by Tuttle’s fevered pace of touring over the past few years. Most of the tracks were written by Tuttle and Old Crow Medicine Show’s Ketch Secor, with other tracks co-written by Tuttle and OCMS’s Mason Via, former Front Country frontperson Melody Walker, and Golden Highway bassist Shelby Means.

“When I was a kid, we took a field trip to Coloma, California, to learn about the gold rush,” Tuttle, who grew up in Northern California, explains in a press release announcing the album. “I’ll never forget the dusty hills and the grizzled old miner who showed us the nugget around his neck. Just like gold fever, music has always captivated me, captured my heart, and driven me to great lengths to explore its depths. On my new album I dug deep as a songwriter (with Ketch Secor) and co-producer (with Jerry Douglas) and surfaced with a record that celebrates the music of my heart, my life, the land where I grew up, and the stories I heard along the way.”

She continues: “The songs span from breakdowns to ballads, fairytales and fiddle tunes, from Yosemite up to the Gold Country and out beyond the mountains. That visit to Coloma, site of California’s first gold strike, is where I first heard about El Dorado, the city of gold. Playing music can take you to a place that is just as precious.”

“El Dorado” is the title of the album’s first single. A video for the song was released today, along with news of the album:

Golden Highway is comprised of Bronwyn Keith-Hynes on fiddle, Dominick Leslie on mandolin, Shelby Means on bass, and Kyle Tuttle on banjo. Douglas contributes dobro on the City of Gold, and Dave Matthews is a guest on the song “Yosemite.”

Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway are touring throughout the summer, starting with the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival on May 5 and including FreshGrass Festival | Bentonville in Arkansas on May 20. FreshGrass’ two annual festivals are presented by No Depression’s publisher, the nonprofit FreshGrass Foundation. Find all of Tuttle’s tour dates here.