CURATION
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from this page:
by Augmented Matrix
The Integrated Global Creative Economy
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Name:
Molly Tuttle
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City/Place:
Nashville, Tennessee
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Country:
United States
Life
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Bio:
A virtuosic, award-winning guitarist with a gift for insightful songwriting, Molly Tuttle established herself as a new artist to watch with her boundary-breaking debut album, WHEN YOU’RE READY. What followed were dates at Telluride, Newport Folk Fest, an appearance on CBS Saturday Morning, and an enthusiastic reception both by critics and her fellow musicians.
In March 2020, the Nashville-based artist experienced the devastating tornado that tore through much of East Nashville, followed by the global pandemic. Tuttle, who grew up in California and has toured as a solo artist for years, suddenly found herself – along with the rest of the musician community – sheltering at home. She found solace in revisiting favorite songs from throughout her life in an attempt to “remind myself why I love music.” She conceptualized an idea for a record with renowned LA producer Tony Berg (Phoebe Bridgers, Andrew Bird) to be recorded over 2,000 miles apart.
Tuttle taught herself how to use ProTools, recorded and engineered all of her parts alone before sending them to Berg in Los Angeles. Berg proceeded to enlist legendary session musicians including drummer, Matt Chamberlain and keys player, Patrick Warren to add instrumentation in their respective home studios. Guest vocalists include Dawes’ Taylor Goldsmith and Old Crow Medicine Show’s Ketch Secor.. “This is how the astronauts do it!” she recalls Berg saying as they sent the files back and forth.
The result is 10 tracks that cross the musical spectrum and the decades, from FKA Twigs to Cat Stevens, from Rancid to Karen Dalton, that will be released as …but i'd rather be with you on Compass Records.
The songs range from a shimmering version of The National’s “Fake Empire,” to her version of the Rolling Stones “She’s a Rainbow,” all united by Tuttle’s clear, true voice, astonishing range and incredible musicianship.
“I love so many types of music, and it’s exciting to be a part of different musical worlds,” she says, “but when I’m creating, I don’t think about genres or how it will fit into any particular format – it’s just music.”
Since moving to Nashville in 2015, the native Californian has been welcomed into the Americana, folk and bluegrass communities, winning “Instrumentalist of the Year” at the 2018 Americana Music Awards. Her debut, the Ryan Hewitt-produced WHEN YOU’RE READY, stretched the boundaries of those genres and introduced her to a wider audience both here and abroad. Tuttle has continued to accumulate accolades, winning Folk Alliance International’s honor for Song of the Year for “You Didn’t Call My Name” and taking home consecutive trophies for the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Guitar Player of the Year (the first woman in the history of the IBMA to win that honor).
By the age of 11, Tuttle was attending jam sessions, and as she matured, her musical tastes soon ranged from Bob Dylan and Gillian Welch to The Smiths and Neko Case. Nowadays Tuttle is influencing and inspiring her own legion of young fans.
“I love seeing any young person trying to play one of my songs or just learning something from me,” she says. “One of my goals is to inspire the next generation, especially young girls, to play guitar. I think if girls see a woman doing something, it helps them think, ‘I can do that, too.’”
But something she’s quick to point out is that it all has to come from a lot of hard work and focus.
“I still concentrate on getting a better understanding of the fingerboard, so that I have
the freedom to play more of what I hear in my head. There are endless possibilities for learning and growth on the instrument.”
That pursuit of freedom and accomplishment continues to be explored and developed on …but i'd rather be with you, which conveys a further progression of her distinctive talent and musical ambition and gives an indication of the broad scope of her talent.
“I have been working on writing for another original album and am still planning to record that this year,” Tuttle says, “but in the meantime I wanted to share these covers that have lifted my spirits, in hopes that you’ll find some much-needed joy as well.”
More
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Quotes, Notes & Etc.
“Between her expressive, crystalline voice and astounding flat picking guitar skills, Tuttle has made history…”
— Rolling Stone Country
“The person that I’m interested in is what Molly Tuttle is doing. I think she has a tremendous sensitivity for the music and there’s something about her spirit, it has a gentleness and strength in it. I like her vibe and her musicality. I performed with her and got to hear her perform at the IBMAs in Raleigh just last month. She did my favorite thing of the night. She did a version of “Rain And Snow” that was really lovely.”
— Gillian Welch
“[Molly Tuttle] sings with the gentle authority of Gillian Welch, yet plays astoundingly fleet flat-picking guitar like Chet Atkins on superdrive.”
— American Songwriter Magazine
“Her songs, singing and solos, much like her demeanor, tend to have an inward-looking elegance to them; they’re the outward expressions of a searching mind and a longtime dedication to cultivating her craft”
— Jewly Hight, NPR
“Among the most brilliant guitarists in this new generation is Molly Tuttle, who seems as effortlessly conversant when flatpicking as when playing in the clawhammer style, and who is equally gifted as a singer-songwriter.”
— Premier Guitar
Clips (more may be added)
The Bahian Recôncavo was final port-of-call for more enslaved human beings than any other place throughout the entirety of mankind’s existence on this planet.
Brazil absorbed over ten times the number of enslaved Africans taken to the United States of America, and is a repository of African deities now largely forgotten in their lands of origin.
Brazil was a refuge (of sorts) for Sephardim fleeing an Inquisition which followed them across the Atlantic (that unofficial symbol of Brazil’s national music — the pandeiro — was almost certainly brought to Brazil by these people).
Across the parched savannas of the interior of Brazil’s culturally fecund nordeste/northeast (where wizard Hermeto Pascoal was born in Lagoa da Canoa — Lagoon of the Canoe — and raised in Olho d’Águia — Eye of the Eagle), much of Brazil’s aboriginal population was absorbed into a caboclo/quilombola culture punctuated by the Star of David.
"Great culture is great power. And in a small world great things are possible."
The Matrix was built to open the world to Bahian musicians by opening the world to all creators.
In the Matrix you curate people (and entities) for what they do and where they do it. And they can curate you. A network is formed.
By the mathematical magic of the small-world phenomenon, everybody in the Matrix (as in human society) tends to within degrees of everybody else.
And by logical extension, the entire planet. All can (potentially) be found by everybody. QED
Recently accessed from:

"Thanks, this is a brilliant idea!!"
—Alicia Svigals (NEW YORK CITY): Apotheosis of klezmer violinists
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers (BOSTON): Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory ... Former personal recording engineer for Prince; "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"
"Dear Sparrow, Many thanks for this – I am touched!"
—Julian Lloyd Webber (LONDON): Premier cellist in UK; brother of Andrew (Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats, Phantom of the Opera...)
"This is super impressive work ! Congratulations ! Thanks for including me :)))"
—Clarice Assad (RIO DE JANEIRO/CHICAGO): Pianist and composer with works performed by Yo Yo Ma and orchestras around the world
"We appreciate you including Kamasi in the matrix, Sparrow."
—Banch Abegaze (LOS ANGELES): manager, Kamasi Washington
"Thanks! It looks great!....I didn't write 'Cantaloupe Island' though...Herbie Hancock did! Great Page though, well done! best, Randy"
"Very nice! Thank you for this. Warmest regards and wishing much success for the project! Matt"
—Son of Jimmy Garrison (bass for John Coltrane, Bill Evans...); plays with Herbie Hancock and other greats...
Ground Zero for the project was the culture born in Brazil's quilombos (in Angola a kilombo is a village; in Brazil it is a village either founded by Africans or Afro-Brazilians who had escaped slavery, or — as in the case of São Francisco do Paraguaçu below — occupied by such after abandonment by the ruling class):

...theme for a Brazilian Matrix, from an Afro-Brazilian Mass by
Milton Nascimento
I opened the shop in Salvador, Bahia in 2005 in order to create an outlet to the wider world for magnificent Brazilian musicians.
David Dye & Kim Junod for NPR found us (above), and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (he's a huge jazz fan), David Byrne, Oscar Castro-Neves... Spike Lee walked past the place while I was sitting on the stoop across the street drinking beer and listening to samba from the speaker in the window...
But we weren't exactly easy for the world-at-large to get to. So in order to extend the place's ethos I transformed the site associated with it into a network wherein Brazilian musicians I knew would recommend other Brazilian musicians, who would recommend others...
And as I anticipated, the chalky hand of God-as-mathematician intervened: In human society — per the small-world phenomenon — most of the billions of us on earth are within some 6 or fewer degrees of each other. Likewise, within a network of interlinked artists as I've described above, most of these artists will in the same manner be at most a handful of steps away from each other.
So then, all that's necessary to put the Brazilians within possible purview of the wide wide world is to include them among a wide wide range of artists around that world.
If, for example, Quincy Jones is inside the matrix, then anybody on his page — whether they be accessing from a campus in L.A., a pub in Dublin, a shebeen in Cape Town, a tent in Mongolia — will be close, transitable steps away from Raymundo Sodré, even if they know nothing of Brazil and are unaware that Sodré sings/dances upon this planet. Sodré, having been knocked from the perch of fame and ground into anonymity by Brazil's dictatorship, has now the alternative of access to the world-at-large via recourse to the vast potential of network theory.
...to the degree that other artists et al — writers, researchers, filmmakers, painters, choreographers...everywhere — do also. Artificial intelligence not required. Real intelligence, yes.
Years ago in NYC (I've lived here in Brazil for 32 years now) I "rescued" unpaid royalties (performance & mechanical) for artists/composers including Barbra Streisand, Aretha Franklin, Mongo Santamaria, Jim Hall, Clement "Coxsone" Dodd (for his rights in Bob Marley compositions; Clement was Bob's first producer), Led Zeppelin, Ray Barretto, Philip Glass and many others. Aretha called me out of the blue vis-à-vis money owed by Atlantic Records. Allen Klein (managed The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Ray Charles) called about money due the estate of Sam Cooke. Jerry Ragovoy (Time Is On My Side, Piece of My Heart) called just to see if he had any unpaid money floating around out there (the royalty world was a shark-filled jungle, to mangle metaphors, and I doubt it's changed).
But the pertinent client (and friend) in the present context is Earl "Speedo" Carroll, of The Cadillacs. Earl went from doo-wopping on Harlem streetcorners to chart-topping success to working as a custodian at PS 87 elementary school on the west side of Manhattan. Through all of this he never lost what made him great.
Greatness and fame are too often conflated. The former should be accessible independently of the latter.
Yeah this is Bob's first record contract, made with Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd of Studio One and co-signed by his aunt because he was under 21. I took it to Black Rock to argue with CBS' lawyers about the royalties they didn't want to pay (they paid).
Matrix founding creators are behind "one of 10 of the best (radios) around the world", per The Guardian.
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