The California-born, Nashville-based acclaimed bluegrass guitarist, banjoist and singer-songwriter brings her nimble-fingered skills, catchy tunes and cleverly humorous narrative lyrics to this excellent fifth solo LP of ballads, breakups, and ball-breakers. Opener Everything Burns is a lively toe-tapper that instantly showcases her remarkable finger-picking talent as well as bright, mellifluous voice, but also highlights man-made violence and catastrophe that highlights climate as well as gun violence (“See the arsonist standing in the burning sun/ With the stars and the stripes and the Tommy Gun”). The album then fluctuates in pace and mood mixing country, Americana folk and bluegrass, more personal and autobiographical, continuing with the uplifting serenade of The Highway Knows, filled a road song filled with large vistas and optimism and fabulous instrumental fills, the wistful, gentle banjo-flecked Golden State of Mind, and another highlight, Rosalee, a vivid, catchy woman-on-the-run ballad with added fiddle and Wurlitzer keys). Another is the punchy, wry humour of That’s Gonna Leave a Mark, a song with a stirring warmth as well as heartbreak pain with a catchy chorus. Story Of My So-Called Life is about breakup, but is still upbeat, with an unsinkable attitude (“Couch surfing house to house/ Played until my arms gave out for any amount”). Tuttle has had alopecia since an early age, and, as the album cover and her various videos show, she has no problem hiding it, nor how much she enjoys a wide variety of glamorous wigs, including of the sassy use of this as metaphor on the fabulous thumpy groove and clever lyrics of Old Me (New Wig): “I changed my guitar strings so I can tune you out / I got a new song to sing, you don't know who it's about / I've been rehearsing, reversing the person before/ Crossed you out like a cliché metaphor … Got you off of my back, now I'm walking on air / I got a new wig to get you out of my hair.” Whatever mood, story or circumstances, all 12 tracks variously feel defiant, feisty, joyously life-affirming, and always positive, with fabulously tight musicianship that stays true to her roots. Out on Nonesuch Records.
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