City of Gold

by Molly Tuttle, Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway

Overview

Bluegrass-Americana phenom Molly Tuttle and her Golden Highway band saw their 2022 ensemble debut, Crooked Tree, take home the trophy for Best Bluegrass Album at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards. The pressure to deliver a worthy sequel has had little effect on the group. Tuttle and company have released another assured collection of songs that pair virtuosic musicianship with relatable and erudite songwriting. Despite having formed just a few years prior, Golden Highway (Bronwyn Keith-Hynes (fiddle, harmony vocals), Dominick Leslie (mandolin), Shelby Means (bass, harmony vocals), and Kyle Tuttle (banjo, harmony vocals) have matured into a picking, strumming, and fiddling tour de force, and Tuttle and co-producer/dobro specialist Jerry Douglas' live studio recording dutifully captures the band's intuitive on-stage dynamics. Looking to her native California for lyrical inspiration - much of the material was co-written with Ketch Secor of Old Crow Medicine Show - Tuttle's Western-leaning bluegrass, folk, and Americana songs bear the hallmarks of traditional country music (heartbreak, salvation, etc.) without subscribing to its reductive qualities. Spirited opener "El Dorodo" spins a cautionary tale of gold lust and greed from the perspective of the last miner standing, Gold Rush Kate, while the punchy "Where Did All the Wild Things Go?" laments social and societal gentrification ("Sometimes you gotta stand out in a crowd, get loud, fly your freak flag proud") with a profusion of punk rock 'tude. Tuttle remains an astute balladeer, evidenced by the divorce-inducing road trip tale "Yosemite," a duet with Dave Matthews, the harrowing, abortion rights narrative "Goodbye Mary," and the winkingly sweet self-love closer "The First Time I Fell in Love," but City of Gold works best when all of the pistons are pumping. Eschewing the beer and whiskey-soaked ruminations of classic country for stories of greener, though no less inebriating pastures, "Down Home Dispensary" and "Alice in the Bluegrass" blaze a fiery, smoke-filled path through the genre, leaving behind the seeds for a new generation to sow. ~ James Christopher Monger

Product Details

Release Date:	07/21/2023
Label:	Nonesuch
UPC:	0075597906998

Tracks

1. El Dorado
2. Where Did All the Wild Things Go?
3. San Joaquin
4. Yosemite
5. Next Rodeo
6. When My Race Is Run
7. Alice in the Bluegrass
8. Stranger Things
9. Down Home Dispensary
10. More Like a River
11. Goodbye Mary
12. Evergreen, OK
13. The First Time I Fell in Love

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Molly Tuttle   Primary Artist,Vocals,Guitar (Acoustic)
Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway   Primary Artist
Jerry Douglas   Dobro
Dave Matthews   Vocals,Featured Artist
Dominick Leslie   Band,Mandolin
Shelby Means   Band,Bass,Vocal Harmony
Bronwyn Keith-Hynes   Band,Fiddle,Vocal Harmony
Kyle Tuttle   Band,Banjo,Vocal Harmony
Jordan Perlsan   Drums

Technical Credits

Jerry Douglas   Mixing,Producer
Paul Blakemore   Mastering
Nick Steinhardt   Design,Art Direction
Ketch Secor   Composer
Melody Walker   Composer
Molly Tuttle   Composer,Producer
Sean Sullivan   Mixing,Engineer
Shelby Means   Composer
Mason Via   Composer
Bobbi Rich   Photography
David Paulin   Assistant Engineer