Further evidence that Molly’s star has risen is her fall 2017 signing to Compass Records for whom she will record her first full-length album, the follow-up to her 2017 self-released EP Rise, which featured contributions by Darrell Scott, the Milk Carton Kids, Kathy Kallick, and Nathaniel Smith. In 2017, Molly also was nominated for three International Bluegrass Music Awards, including Emerging Artist and Female Vocalist of the Year, becoming the first woman to win IBMA Guitar Player of the Year (having also been the first woman ever nominated in that category). Her remarkable achievement came before she’d spent a quarter century on the planet. 

Molly, now living in Nashville, has not been thrown off-kilter by the skyrocketing arc of her young career. “Nashville is full of the best musicians in the world,” she says, “so being around that keeps me feeling grounded and humble. Other things that keep me grounded when I come home after a lot of touring are riding my bike around east Nashville, connecting and advocating for the Alopecia community, which I’ve done a bit in the past year, and working on new music. Keeping the focus on music and being creative really helps keep everything else in perspective.”

While her skills as a guitarist have won her unprecedented acclaim, Molly is emerging as a triple threat—along the lines of someone like Richard Thompson—as a guitarist, singer, and songwriter. Writing in American Songwriter magazine, Paul Zollo observed that Molly “plays astoundingly fleet flatpicking guitar like Chet Atkins on superdrive” and “sings with the gentle authority of Gillian Welch.” As evidenced by the seven songs on her EP, Rise, and the fact that her song “Lightning in a Jar” has garnered over 1 million plays on Spotify, Molly’s songwriting is coming into prominence, as well.

Even as she expresses her deep admiration for such musicians as Alison Krauss—“someone who I think has always stayed true to her own music and sound”—and Gillian Welch—“another who has never done anything that doesn’t sound completely authentic to who she is as an artist”— Molly Tuttle is becoming a role model in her own right. As she said in her IBMA award acceptance speech, “I want to be an inspiration to other women to play lead guitar.” Leading the Molly Tuttle Band (with banjo player Wes Corbett, mandolinist Joe K. Walsh, and bassist and Hasee Ciaccio), teaching at the Targhee Music Camp and the Nashville Flatpick Camp, and on AcousticGuitar.com, and racking up honors, she is well on her to bringing others along with her.