Molly Tuttle
So Long Little Miss Sunshine
NONESUCH
Singer and guitarist Molly Tuttle has practically every signifier of roots music authenticity: award-winning technical virtuosity, a command of timeless folk idioms, even a romantic partnership with a fellow string-band revivalist, Old Crow Medicine Show’s Ketch Secor. A lifelong struggle with alopecia areata adds a necessary wrinkle to her backstory; she’s got a right to sing the blues. Admittedly, she hails from metropolitan California as opposed to rustic Appalachia—but then again, so does Gillian Welch.
Following a couple of sensational bluegrass outings with her crack band Golden Highway (the one-two punch of 2022’s Crooked Tree and 2023’s City of Gold), Tuttle turns to one of the diciest propositions for an artist of her stature: the pop crossover. So Long Little Miss Sunshine was made with plenty of input from Secor, but no involvement from Golden Highway. It was produced by Jay Joyce, an in-demand Nashville talent whose track record includes a number of pop-country hits with the likes of Eric Church and Miranda Lambert.
For all but the most spoilsport purists, the collaboration will provide welcome confirmation that Tuttle remains a badass in whatever idiom she chooses—and that even her turn toward pop is less a rejection of her roots than an expansion of her worldview. There’s still instrumental pyrotechnics aplenty; the album even opens with a darkly dramatic showcase for Tuttle’s adroit fingerpicking. And on “Rosalee,” an early album highlight, Tuttle updates the classic outlaw ballad, demonstrating once again her command of genre and lineage.
Joyce doesn’t pile on the gloss or bury Tuttle’s distinctive singing and playing under too much studio polish; what he does do is steer Tuttle toward sleek, propulsive, and hooky songs, keeping things tight and snappy while leaving some space for rich acoustic textures. It’s a successful expression of Tuttle’s talents, and nowhere more so than on “The Highway Knows,” a vagabond’s love song delivered with the joyful lilt of prime Sheryl Crow. Only a cover of “I Love It,” the 2012 hit from Icona Pop and Charli XCX, feels awkward, its acoustic makeover sounding showy where everything else here feels easeful and poised.
As a lyricist, Tuttle has always been gifted at blending archetypes and iconography with personal revelation. A highlight here is “Golden State of Mind,” the latest and one of the best in Tuttle’s oeuvre of hymns to the West Coast. Where sometimes her vision of California feels mythic, here it just sounds like home. Later on the record, “That’s Gonna Leave a Mark” conjures equally warm summer road trip vibes, unpacking a bad relationship without getting too worked up about it.
The irresistible rave-up “Old Me (New Wig)” features some of the album’s most fleet-fingered guitar lines and addresses Tuttle’s alopecia more directly than any of her previous songs, positioning it not as a lament but as a catalyst for self-transformation. “I’m breaking up with the old me,” Tuttle declares, but the beauty of So Long Little Miss Sunshine is how it sounds both of-a-piece with her previous work and also like a confident new adventure. It’s authentic to who she is as a roots music performer; it’s also pure pop pleasure.
