Courtney Hartman
Courtney Hartman is a Colorado-born guitarist, singer, and songwriter who first drew national attention as lead guitarist of the all-women string band Della Mae, then built a searching solo career that moves from bluegrass and old-time into folk and indie territory. An Americana Music Association Instrumentalist of the Year nominee, she pairs fluid flatpicked lead guitar with quiet, texture-first songcraft.
- Raised in Loveland, Colorado, she started violin at three, took up guitar at eleven, and wrote her first song at twelve, spending much of her childhood immersed in the bluegrass world.
- She moved to Boston in 2009 for Berklee College of Music’s American Roots Music program, tracked guitar and vocals on Della Mae’s I Built This Heart (2011), and soon became the band’s full-time lead guitarist, also contributing banjo and vocals.
- Della Mae won the IBMA’s Emerging Artist of the Year award in 2013, and its Rounder debut This World Oft Can Be earned a 2014 Grammy nomination for Best Bluegrass Album.
- She recorded three albums with the band before it paused touring in May 2016; in spring 2017 she walked Spain’s 500-mile Camino de Santiago, and when Della Mae reconvened in 2018 it was without her.
- Dear John (2017), a duo album with Texas songwriter Robert Ellis recorded live in Fort Worth, works through ten John Hartford songs, including “Gentle on My Mind.”
- Been on Your Side (Free Dirt, 2018) paired her guitar and voice with the clawhammer banjo of Canadian songwriter Taylor Ashton.
- Her solo debut EP Nothing We Say (2016) was followed by the full-length Ready Reckoner (2019), co-produced with Shahzad Ismaily in Brooklyn and featuring Bill Frisell, Anaïs Mitchell, and Sam Amidon.
- Glade (2021) was recorded largely alone in the barn on the Loveland farm where she grew up; With You (2025), cut in her current home of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, reflects on motherhood through co-writes with Sarah Siskind, Dawn Landes, Ana Egge, and Tift Merritt.
- Nominated for the Americana Music Association’s Instrumentalist of the Year award in 2017, she has backed Buffy Sainte-Marie and Mike Campbell and performs voice and guitar in the Silkroad Ensemble.
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Darol AngerPlayed on recordings with Darol Anger
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Della MaePlayed on recordings with Della Mae
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Robert Ellis and Courtney HartmanPlayed on recordings with Robert Ellis and Courtney Hartman
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Special ConsensusPlayed on recording with Special Consensus