Demonstrating Tuttle’s musical range, City of Golden compasses everything from the sprawling roots-rock of “When My Race Is Run,” a gorgeously moody pieces he describes as “a love song about death, and wanting someone to be the person there waiting for you when you cross over,” to the spooky folk of “Stranger Things,” a darkly charged reverie featuring Douglas’s masterful work on Dobro. Tuttle also showcases her beguiling vocals and lavishly detailed songwriting with such matters as marijuana legalization on “Down Home Dispensary,” a gloriously fun track spiked with unforgettable lines like “Legalize the southland and roll us a number” and gentrification’s corrosive effect on the character of once-vibrant neighborhoods on the harmony-fueled and freewheeling“ Where Did All the Wild Things Go.” Throughout City of Gold, Tuttle and Golden Highway deliver the kind of high-energy and full-hearted songs primed for a joyously unified singing-along, an element that partly inspired the title to the album. “To me the words ‘City of Gold’ represent the community that the band and I have built with the people we get to play music for, and how it’s become like its own little world,” says Tuttle. “I wanted the album to celebrate that sense of community, because one of the things I love most about this music is how so much of the audience plays music as well. They inspire me to keep writing songs in the hopes that people will sing along and maybe play those songs with their friends—almost like we’re all a part of one great big family.” Since moving to Nashville in 2015, Tuttle has continued to receive widespread accolades, most recently earning seven nominations at the 2023 IBMA Bluegrass Music Awards: Entertainer of the Year, Female Vocalist of the Year, Guitar Player of the Year, Album of the Year (Crooked Tree), Song of the Year (“Crooked Tree”), Instrumental Group of the Year and Collaborative Recording of the Year (“From My Mountain [Calling You]” with Peter Rowan Linsday Lou).Additionally, Tuttle also won Album of the Year at the 2023 International Folk Music Awards, Female Vocalist of the Year at the 2022 IBMAs, Instrumentalist of the Year at the 2018 Americana Music Awards and Guitar Player of the Year at the IBMAs in both 2017 and 2018.
