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Her new solo album, So Long Little Miss Sunshine, out Friday (Aug. 15) on Nonesuch, is the result of that risk-taking — and marks a radical stylistic evolution from her earlier bluegrass-oriented work. The 12-song album is built on a bedrock of folk-pop, country and rock, while still folding in dashes of bluegrass.

“When we finished the record and I heard it all, I was like, ‘This has Sheryl Crow vibes and I love it.’ She’s my hero,” Tuttle says.

Over the past five years, in between playing more than 100 shows per year with Golden Highway, making her previous two projects (in addition to her solo 2024 EP Into the Wild) and seeing Crooked Tree win the IBMA’s album of the year award, Tuttle was culling songs that landed outside her usual purview. She wrote many of the songs on the new album with her partner, Old Crow Medicine Show’s Ketch Secor.

“Bluegrass is the music I grew up with and that’s such a kind of defined format to me. You can push boundaries, but you are still kind of writing within this established genre,” she says. “I so often write songs that don’t really fit into any specific style of music. I’ve gravitated towards this sound that is a little less defined and that made it scarier to make this album.”

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Molly Tuttle started making a name for herself in bluegrass circles in the late 2010s, when her debut EP Rise and her first LP When You’re Ready showcased her impressive guitar skills. Interestingly, it wasn’t until she assembled Golden Highway, an equally skilled ensemble of bluegrass players, that she was recognized outside of the rather insular world of bluegrass music. Both of her albums with Golden Highway, Crooked Tree and City of Gold, won the Grammy award for Best Bluegrass Album, while Tuttle earned a Best New Artist nomination at the 2023 Grammys.

It’s interesting, after all this success, to see her jettisoning the band, but here we are. So Long Little Miss Sunshine is billed as a Molly Tuttle solo album, featuring a crew of professional Nashville musicians and a lot of fiddler Ketch Secor from Old Crow Medicine Show, who is also Tuttle’s romantic partner. Accordingly, it’s a record that finds Tuttle stretching out her sound a bit, though her songwriting and guitar skills continue to be on full display.

One would be forgiven for thinking Sunshine’s first single, “That’s Gonna Leave a Mark”, is Tuttle’s cynical bid to fill the female pop-country void left when Taylor Swift went fully pop. It’s a slickly produced, exceedingly catchy track that heavily features organ, prominent drums, and even handclaps. It’s also a sterling example of a great pop-country song, and will instantly get stuck in a listener’s head and continue to rattle around for days afterward. Tuttle’s smooth vocal performance features little in the way of country affectations, but her guitar leads continue to be pure bluegrass. The guitar style is an interesting feature that tethers Tuttle to her bluegrass roots, and it does that throughout So Long Little Miss Sunshine.

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On the more positive side, there’s the ebullient “Oasis”, which is a loving ode to a new relationship. With Secor on backing vocals and knowing the song is likely about him, the track is even more effective....

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