Molly Tuttle Artistfacts

January 14, 1993
Molly Tuttle is a singer, songwriter, and guitarist whose music is rooted in bluegrass. She's widely admired for her virtuosity on the guitar, particularly her flatpicking, crosspicking, and clawhammer technique; skills that made her a standout in a genre long dominated by men.
Born in Santa Clara, California, and raised in Palo Alto, Tuttle grew up in a house where bluegrass was the family language. Her father, Jack Tuttle, is a respected multi-instrumentalist and bluegrass instructor, and as a teenager Molly performed in the family band The Tuttles with A.J. Lee, alongside her brothers Sullivan and Michael.
She picked up the guitar at age 8 and gravitated early toward flatpicking. By her early teens, she was already being discussed in serious bluegrass circles as a technical outlier. At 13, she recorded her first album of duets with her father and was playing festivals before most kids her age were thinking about driver's licenses.
After high school, Tuttle enrolled at Berklee College of Music in Boston, studying in the American Roots Music Program with a focus on guitar and songwriting, before transitioning fully into a touring and recording career.
In 2017 she became the first woman ever to win the International Bluegrass Music Association's Guitar Player of the Year award since its inception in 1990. She won again in 2018, helping reset expectations about who gets to be a lead instrumental virtuoso in bluegrass.
Since age 3, Tuttle has lived with alopecia areata, an autoimmune condition that causes hair loss. She has worn wigs from a young age - initially as protection, later as fashion - and eventually reclaimed them as part of her artistic identity, referencing them in album artwork and songs like "Old Me (New Wig)." Tuttle now serves as a spokesperson for the National Alopecia Areata Foundation.
Musically, Tuttle has modernized bluegrass without abandoning it. Albums like Crooked Tree lean into tradition, while later work such as So Long Little Miss Sunshine folds in pop, rock, and country influences, all while maintaining bluegrass-level precision and storytelling.
She often writes songs from the guitar outward, starting with riffs and chord movements before lyrics arrive. The approach gives her songs a rhythmic muscle even when the subject matter turns inward.
Her songwriting can be a bit macabre. "I've always loved murder ballads," she told The New York Times. "I have a natural love of horror movies, and gore, and creepy stories."
She's unafraid of radical reinterpretation. Her slowed-down, trippy acoustic cover of Icona Pop's "I Love It" wasn't meant as irony; it was an experiment in how far a song can be transformed and still uncover new emotional meaning.

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