By L. Kent Wolgamott
Last Word Features

Molly Tuttle won the Grammy Award for best bluegrass album two years in a row (for her 2022 album “Crooked Tree” and her 2023 follow-up “City of Gold”) and was the first woman to win the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Guitar Player of the Year award.

So why did she feel compelled to turn away from bluegrass to a mixture of country and pop on “So Long Little Miss Sunshine,” the album she released in August?

“It’s just kind of what I was called to do, musically, the songs I was writing,” she said. “There’s no real reason other than that’s what I wanted to do. I’ve always played lots of different styles of music. Even as a kid growing up, I started off playing bluegrass but was always like listening to other genres and learning songs and different styles and writing songs that didn’t really fit into bluegrass.”

In fact, Tuttle pointed out she’s only made two bluegrass records and both were made with her band, Golden Highway. “So Long Little Miss Sunshine” is a solo effort that “felt like it wanted to be its only thing.”

Tuttle, along with special guest Mair, will perform at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Phil Long Music Hall at Bourbon Brothers in Colorado Springs. Tickets start at $44.50 at phillongmusichall.com.

So what will those who turn up for Tuttle’s shows this year hear?

“We’re playing about six or seven songs a night off the new record and the rest is off my other records, a lot of bluegrass stuff, reworking some of them,” Tuttle said. “There are a couple songs off the last two records that work with drums and electric guitar as well as fiddle and mandolin. So it’s kind of like a hybrid of bluegrass, a little bit electrified.”

The “we” is Tuttle and her “happy surprise” all-female band.

“It was not intentional, but we’re having a lot of fun on the road,” she said. “I’m really grateful for it.”