Album Review – Molly Tuttle’s “So Long Little Miss Sunshine”
Adult Contemporary Pop (#N.A.) and Indie rock-inspired Americana on the Country DSS.
If you’re a traditional bluegrass fan, is it a sad development that the Millennial Queen of Bluegrass has gone pop? Yes, it is. Is producer Jay Joyce officially now the reigning Country Music Antichrist, and deserves to get chlamydia from the Tyler Childers koala? Yes, he does. But is Molly Tuttle’s new album So Long Little Miss Sunshine as bad as you feared when she first announced it? No, it’s not. Disappointing as the whole situation might be for some, this turned out better than expected.
For years we pined for Molly Tuttle to lean into her bluegrass roots. As she was racking up IBMA trophies for Guitarist of the Year, her solo stuff was much more folk and singer/songwriter in scope. Then in 2022, we got our wish when Molly launched her band Golden Highway, and released the album Crooked Tree. It won a Grammy. So did the next one, 2023’s City of Gold. All was right in the bluegrass world. But in the debut song from her bluegrass era called “She’ll Change,” Tuttle warned us,
“One woman, many wonders. One road, many ways.
Just when you think you know her, she’ll change.”
That’s exactly what Molly Tuttle has done once again, leaning very heavily into pop sounds, writing, and production, saddling up with producer Jay Joyce who is known for putting that commercial sheen and polish on mainstream country songs, and releasing a record that won’t compete for a bluegrass Grammy, that’s for sure. And it all happens at a time when bluegrass and more rootsy music is in a popular resurgence.
In some respects, you can’t blame Molly for wanting to try something different. Despite the critical acclaim of her bluegrass moment, for whatever reason, it just wasn’t seeing the uplift you expected. Despite standing on her head out on stage every night and her kick ass band, she was still out on the road opening for Old Crow Medicine Show, and playing late afternoon slots at festivals. Maybe patience would have shown greater dividends, but that wasn’t for certain.
Also when you master bluegrass at 15, what’s the challenge? Molly Tuttle has always seemed somewhat bored with conventional bluegrass, and always searching for other avenues to explore. For all we know, she’s always harbored dreams of being a pop star. She should be allowed to do whatever she wants, even if it feels like a sin that she’s not leaning into her undeniable strengths as a bluegrass musician.
In truth, what Molly Tuttle is doing on So Long Little Miss Sunshine isn’t too far afield from what other women of a bluegrass origin like Sarah Jarosz and Alison Krauss have done in the past. Though it’s fair to characterize the work as “pop” in total, there are a lot of acoustic textures to the album that are more indicative of the contemporary folk universe as opposed to pop.
There are also multiple songs that feel like leftover inventory from Molly’s bluegrass era. Given a different treatment, they would be considered bluegrass songs. “Rosalee” is the most obvious. It’s pretty much a straight ahead bluegrass murder ballad, just with a slightly more modern tone. “Golden State of Mind” and others could have easily gone in a more bluegrass direction.
Yes, this is a pop album. But Molly Tuttle was up front about that from the very start, so this is not a scenario where someone is calling something bluegrass or country when it clearly isn’t. Also, if she was out there trying to compete with the Taylor Swift’s and Chappell Roan’s of the world, Molly would immediately have become a small fish in a very big sea. But So Long Little Miss Sunshine is much more adult contemporary. This is an AAA radio play album, and in that world, it could perform very well.
That said, there are some rather cringey moments, and some that are curiously cliché from Molly, beyond having to swallow the bitter pill of Molly moving on from bluegrass. The album’s big, saccharine single “That’s Gonna Leave a Mark” makes you wince when she issues the cliché line, “Ooh you got a certain je ne sais quoi,” and there are similar lines that lurk on this album. “The Highway Knows” could have been a killer road song, but the bouncy, beach-like rhythm and melody just remove all guts from the effort.
Also, despite the infectious flourishes of Molly’s acoustic textures throughout the album, not really once is she allowed to take a serious, extended solo. Everything is so stylized, structured, and overproduced as only Jay Joyce can do. But usually Jay Joyce screws up country albums by trying to inject “pop sensibilities” into the production. In this instance, he’s injecting pop sensibilities onto pop production. And though you want to hate it, in moments, you find yourself admitting that it works, for pop at least.
If you’re trying to make a pop album and it’s not infectious and fluffy, you fail. So for what it is, So Long Little Miss Sunshine is a success. Does that mean that bluegrass/country fans can somehow be satisfied with this outcome? Not really, because pop/AAA’s gain is their loss. And this loss is major because Molly Tuttle is an amazing, landmark, generational talent that can sell the beauty and power of bluegrass music to the next generation of young women wanting to pick up guitars, fiddles, mandolins, and banjos.
But Molly Tuttle warned us in 2021, and we should remember it again in this moment: “One woman, many wonders. One road, many ways. Just when you think you know her, she’ll change.”
Maybe it will be this more pop moment that will bring the attention to Molly Tuttle she’s always deserved. And once that momentum is captured, she will return to bluegrass, and with much more promising prospects behind her. A bluegrass fan can only wish. But for now, she’s gone from her golden era to her era of “not so” little miss sunshine. We’ll have to sit back and see just how bright it shines, or if the luster fades.
(rating withheld due to the album not residing in the country realm)
August 18, 2025 @ 8:16 am
I know nothing about Jay Joyce to have developed any expectations, and I had a very different reaction to the production. I’m the sort that hears, say, Luke Combs playing solo acoustic and thinks “this is great” and then cringes at the album track of the same song. I just can’t stand the way pop production sounds. I didn’t get that off of this at all though. I found that I was surprised to really like it because while she’s playing very different styles it didn’t seem to have that lifeless sheen of overproduction that generally grates on my nerves. I also felt that particularly from the opening track it seemed to be showcasing her guitar playing in a way that’s much more pop/rock showcasing than bluegrass. It left me with the sense that she’s doing this because she likes it and I felt came across as more her real voice than a lot of the bluegrass stuff does. I’m afraid that it’s not going to work well for her though because though I like it a lot most of here bluegrass fans won’t and it’s not standard enough pop sounds and production to appeal to that audience.
August 18, 2025 @ 8:32 am
This album didn’t really speak to me but then it’s not really aimed at me either.
What I will say is that I saw Golden Highway on nearly every tour. I saw them go from sprinter van to bus and trailer. The last show I caught, Mexico’s Strings & Sol, in December, I genuinely believed they were the best live act going anywhere.
Molly can do whatever she likes, as we all can, but I feel for her band. They’re all incredible musicians and as a unit, they were unstoppable. I hope the end wasn’t was abrupt and unexpected for them as it was for us.
I hope we’ll see them together again soon.
Bronwyn Keith-Hynes and Shelby Means have both had incredible albums out this year. Don’t sleep on either!
August 18, 2025 @ 8:33 am
I want to see what my 9 year old daughter thinks of this album. We listen to a good deal of Molly’s bluegrass live sets. I need to see if she has any live sets of this material/new band. Thanks for the review.
August 18, 2025 @ 8:52 am
On a first listen to 5 tracks it’s too compressed and staccato and reverb-y sounding for me. Her voice does work for this kind of Lana Del Ray on uppers pseudo Pop Country.
August 18, 2025 @ 9:07 am
All these low budget wig-switching videos are absurd.
What a dumb concept.
August 18, 2025 @ 9:17 am
I’m about the biggest bluegrass fan you’ll ever encounter (tradgrass, newgrass, jamgrass, whatever Punch Brothers is) and I love it all. I’m happy for Molly. Let her spread her wings and fly as far as she can go! Bluegrass is in her DNA and when the time is right she’ll return to the fold. Go Molly Go!
August 18, 2025 @ 9:31 am
I like her solo albums before the Golden Highway era and I think her work with Golden Highway is outstanding. I also like classic pop, i.e. not the modern mainstream pop of the last 30 years.
This album isn’t convincing as a pop album either. The compositions and arrangements are completely unimaginative. I couldn’t listen to a single song completely because I found them so incredibly boring. There is nothing on the album that you haven’t heard more imaginatively and convincingly elsewhere.
How the same artist can decline in quality so much within a year is unbelievable.
August 18, 2025 @ 9:33 am
Good review. I’m one of those who was greatly disappointed with the demise of Golden Highway. As an artist and someone who has worked in the music industry for years, I feel Molly should have gone another year with Golden Highway before this album. I saw them on their own gigs and at festivals and they were truly a supergroup on an upward trajectory. With the climb in popularity of bluegrass and guys like Billy Strings selling out basketball arenas, I think Molly might have achieved a similar status. As an artist, I can understand where she’s coming from. If anyone followed her before Golden Highway, you know that bluegrass was not her main thing. I too have been disappointed by this album. I love Molly, I think she’s an incredibly talented artist and by every indication, seems like a wonderful human being. This album does highlight her guitar playing, which is great to hear, but for me, perhaps if it had more of an Americana edge rather than a pop sheen, I would listen to it more. That said, both her and the members of Golden Highway have said they will play together again and if that’s true, I believe myself and many others will be right back there with them. This album just feels like a detour to me. Maybe she’ll pick up some new fans with this record and if/when Golden Highway returns, they will bring more new people to bluegrass, which in the end would be a good thing. In the meantime, I am loving Bronwyn’s new album, I Built A World. It’s what I feel a modern bluegrass album should be. And by the way, did you know she has an excellent voice? Check it out.
August 18, 2025 @ 9:41 am
It does feel like Molly should have made at least a third bluegrass album with Golden Highway before making this move. It would have almost been a third guaranteed Grammy, another tour and a codifying of her bluegrass era, even if she moved on afterwards. Country and bluegrass are not going to be as hot as they are at the moment forever. These things move in cycles. Of course, all of this is armchair quarterbacking. But I do think only delivering two albums to the bluegrass constituency leaves them feeling unfulfilled. I also agree she will be back. I just think she left a little early.
August 18, 2025 @ 9:35 am
one can’t really blame her for trying to make Shania or Garth vegas money.