I only came across Molly Tuttle when her first full album When You're Ready was reviewed in The Sunday Times.
Molly Tuttle is already a phenomenon: she was the first woman to be named guitar player of the year by The International Bluegrass Association (also Americana Music Instrumentalist of the year 2017) then won the award for the second time. But while purists drool over her technique, this debut (her previous release was a seven track EP) will introduce her to a wider audience as a singer-songwriter. Take the Journey echoes kd lang, Million Miles calls to mind Laura Viers and Make My Mind Up and Messed With My Mind are superior soft rock. Alison Krauss-style crossover success looks assured.
How could I resist. Not all the album was to my taste but enough to get me out on a dark chilly autumn evening to drive over to Oxford for the fourth night of her UK tour. I found she puts on a great show, her class acoustic guitar was backed by electric bass, drums and a fabulous violin. Apart from the awful acoustics of the church, their musicianship was excellent.
We had nineteen songs, ten out of the eleven from When You're Ready and three from Rise. Of the five covers, the best was when the band left and Molly sang Gentle On My Mind and at last we could hear what a brilliant guitar player she is. The combination of melody and rhythm on a single instrument was awesome. The last song of the evening before the encore ( a clever rendition of Werewolves of London for nearly Halloween) was my favourite Take the Journey.
The venue: St Barnabas Church in the Jericho district, Oxford. I had never been to this part of Oxford before. It was interesting to see this distinctive part of the city even in the dark. I will make a note to explore more next year. The church itself is a large basilica-style Victorian building with a very high ceiling and wide nave. It was cold. Most of the audience wore coats or consumed much wine and beer. Fortunately I took two cushions for the hard, very narrow wooden seats. As I said before, very poor acoustics and no stage. With the flat seating, all we saw in row eight was Molly's head. All that was very disappointing. It was fortunate that the music was so good.
Setlist:
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(Yeah Yeah Yeahs cover)
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(Iain Matthews cover)
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(John Hartford cover)
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([traditional] cover)
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- Encore:
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(Warren Zevon cover)
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