Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway

★★★★ Crooked Tree

NONESUCH. CD/DL/LP

Bluegrass’s young Californian trailblazer treads pastures new.

Long lauded for her flatpicking and crosspicking guitar gifts, as well as her songwriting, Santa Clara County’s Molly Tuttle needs no supporting cast, but this LP with her new bluegrass collective Golden Highway is a dazzling pass-the-parcel of Nashville cats showboating. Its fine songs take precedence though, Tuttle extolling nonconformity on the title track (“Crooked tree won’t fit in the mill machine”), Gillian Welch guesting on playful tomboy song Side Saddle, and Castilleja firing on just a hint of Dolly Parton’s Jolene. With venerable lap-steel virtuoso Jerry Douglas co-producing, everything sounds alive, vital and perfectly in focus. “I found out when I was young/A farmer’s day is never done,” sings Tuttle alongside Margo Price on standout track

Flatland Girl; Crooked Tree is a bountiful harvest, fruit of more dedicated application.