Molly and Jack Tuttle

Jack Tuttle grew up in a musical family in rural Illinois, started on guitar at five and took up bluegrass banjo at about twelve, learning from his father, and later mandolin and fiddle. From 1979 he taught full time at Gryphon Stringed Instruments, building a lesson program on banjo, mandolin, fiddle and guitar; he was for many years the music editor of Fiddler Magazine and has written a dozen instruction books. He taught his own three children, Molly, Sullivan and Michael. Molly began playing guitar at eight and at eleven was playing on stage with her father.

On The Old Apple Tree Molly sings and plays lead guitar and clawhammer banjo, with bluegrass banjo on “Air Mail Special on the Fly” and “June Apple,” and Jack sings and plays rhythm guitar, fiddle, mandolin and banjo, taking the lead guitar on “Kentucky Waltz.” The program mixes traditional songs such as “Rain and Snow” and “Diamond Joe” with fiddle tunes and “Kentucky Waltz.” The pair also appeared together on A Prairie Home Companion.

At fifteen Molly joined the family band, the Tuttles with AJ Lee, with her brothers Sullivan on guitar and Michael on mandolin and the mandolinist AJ Lee, and Jack; the group released Introducing the Tuttles in 2010 and Endless Ocean in 2013. Molly then studied at Berklee, moved to Nashville in 2015 and built a solo career. The IBMA named her Guitar Player of the Year in 2017 and 2018, and with her band Golden Highway she won the Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album for Crooked Tree in 2023 and for City of Gold the following year. Jack has received the California Bluegrass Association’s Honorary Lifetime Membership (2007) and the Northern California Bluegrass Society’s Lifetime Achievement Award (2014).