Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway Perform 'Crooked Tree' on Jimmy Kimmel Live

It's safe to say Molly Tuttle ’14 is striding into 2023 with some well-earned momentum. In November, she was nominated for Best New Artist at the Grammys, and her band's 2022 record, Crooked Tree—already recognized as one of the best country albums of the year—was nominated in the Best Bluegrass Album category. And while we'll have to wait until the awards are handed out next month to see if she caps these honors with wins, she's already kicked off the new year with a performance on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Accompanied by her band, Golden Highway, Tuttle played their album's title track, "Crooked Tree"—a plucky tribute to nonconformity, to those trees that survive because they won't "fit into the mill machine."

Tuttle's star had been rising in the bluegrass world for a number of years before she came to Berklee in the early 2010s. "Berklee seemed to offer more styles than the others and had the amazing American roots program," she told the college in a 2018 Berklee Today cover story. "It seemed to me that going there would expand the way I thought about music and open my ears to other styles." Since graduating from Berklee, Tuttle has gained widespread acclaim, both within bluegrass circles for her technical prowess as a guitarist, and in the wider music world for her ability to pair that technique with smart, tuneful songwriting—skills on full display in her performance of "Crooked Tree," which you can watch below: