Crooked Tree

Want to know what 21st-century bluegrass sounds like? Crooked Tree, Molly Tuttle’s first purely bluegrass recording, is the answer. Recorded live, Crooked Tree was produced by Tuttle and singer-songwriter and dobro maestro Jerry Douglas. Session accompanists include Bronwyn Keith-Hynes (fiddle), Dominick Leslie (mandolin), Darol Anger (fiddle), Ron Block (banjo), Mike Bub (upright bass), Jason Carter (fiddle), Viktor Krauss (upright bass), Todd Phillips (upright bass) and Christian Sedelmyer (fiddle). Margo Price, Gillian Welch and Dan Tyminski are also individually featured.

If the only instrument Tuttle commanded was her voice, a beguiling combination of California-cool-articulation-by-way-of-Nashville-warbling-twang, it would be enough. But, dang, her guitar wizardry amazes and her songwriting chops (paired with Old Crow Medicine Show’s Ketch Secor) shine on every one of Crooked Tree’s 13 tracks. ‘Dooley’s Farm’ updates the Dillards’ bluegrass classic by casting the protagonist as a pot farmer rather than moonshiner, with special guest Billy Strings infusing six-string potency to the strain. In two hauntingly atmospheric songs, ‘Castilleja’ depicts a new breed of outlaw on the run while ‘The River Knows’ inverts the murder ballad into a case of justifiable homicide. It all adds up to a captivating bowlegged bluegrass fandango.