Molly Tuttle began turning heads back in 2019 with her preternatural flatpicking skills and bluegrass grooves, which she put on full display with her debut album from that year, When You’re Ready. By then she’d become the first woman to win the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Guitar Player of the Year award, in 2017. She won it again the following year, when she was also named the Americana Music Association’s Instrumentalist of the Year
Six years on, and 21 years into her career, the 32-year-old marvel tells Guitarist that little has changed when it comes to her admittedly unusual choice of guitar pick.
“This is kind of an uncommon one to use, but I have a Dunlop Jazztone 208,” Tuttle says. “It’s really thick, and so a lot of people don’t like them, but that’s just kind of what I’ve been using since I was 10 years old.”
Granted, players have their preferences. Tuttle acknowledge that, these days, BlueChips picks have become a favorite for many, despite their high $35 price.
“A lot of people who play flatpick guitar love the BlueChips,” Tuttle says, while acknowledging players get some special features in return for their money. “I think they’re handmade, so you get really nice bevel on the pick. It’s more of a handcrafted type of pick. These,” she says of her preferred Dunlops, “are more mass-produced.”
Ultimately, Tuttle suggests anyone interested in flat picking pay attention to a guitar pick’s thickness.
“I think if your pick is too thin, it’s going to sound really floppy, and you really need to be able to get a lot of volume. So that’s why I use the thicker picks. That’s not going to like bend when I’m hitting the strings really hard.”
It’s not like Tuttle hasn’t tried other picks. Back in 2020 when she released …But I’d Rather Be With You, she tried out a Wegen pick.
“I can’t remember the model or thickness,” she told us, “but I liked how it sounded brighter and had a more audible attack than the JazzTone, which is such a heavy-duty pick with a round sound. I think I might be transitioning to the Wegen, but I don’t know right now. I go back and forth.”
Tuttle’s acoustic guitar playing is rooted in the bluegrass music of her youth, but features her unique spin on the genre using flatpicking, crosspicking and clawhammer playing. She learned many of those useful approaches to bluegrass from her father, musician Jack Tuttle, but she made them her own while studying at Berklee College of Music.
“Going to Berklee certainly helped,” Tuttle told us, “because I had many great teachers who were amazing players who would very methodically break things down and explain to you exactly how to do something.”
As Tuttle explained in 2022, she also honed her techniques learning songs by her favorite bluegrass artists and songs, including the tandem of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, Joni Mitchell and David Grier.
Tuttle is currently preparing to release her latest album, So Long Little Miss Sunshine, on August 15 on Nonesuch. The record features 12 new songs, including the first single, “That’s Gonna Leave a Mark,” which she co-wrote with Kevin Griffin (Better Than Ezra).
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