It’s been just over a year since Molly Tuttle dissolved her Grammy Award-winning bluegrass quintet Golden Highway, but the band’s virtuosic fiddle player Bronwyn wasted no time getting back on the road with her third solo album, Rattlin’ Bones.
The two-time IBMA Fiddle Player of the Year earned her own Grammy nom in the Best Bluegrass Album category for 2024’s I Built A World.
Local roots have shaped the musician’s blossoming career. “Charlottesville was a super influential place for me musically,” Bronwyn says. “My family moved there when I was 10 and that’s around the age I started getting serious about the fiddle.“
With Rattlin’ Bones, she’s become a triple threat of musical craft, using her fiddle, voice, and now, penning her own songs. “It’s an all-consuming process,” she says of her first experience writing an album, “but it’s extremely satisfying.” The result finds Bronwyn with nothing left to prove, just something to say—and that’s not without a little flex.
Bronwyn kicks off the record by reminding us of the fiddle chops that got her here, alongside a Rattlin’ Bones earmark: melodic writing that strongly mimics the ornamentation signature of her instrument, the bluegrass fiddle. The vocal blends of opening track “Sticks and Bones” lead up to each true note, a technique akin to a slide on a stringed instrument.
Paired with these grace notes, the parallel between her fiddle and vocals comes in the form of sung double stops. These strong two-part harmonies are largely utilized in classic fiddle-like fifths on both the big choruses of “Johnny Ray” and softer moments of the record’s second track, “The Ride” (the heavily accented line “rumble of the rumble strips” is infectious). It’s these elements that keep the album cohesively rooted in bluegrass, while allowing for exploration elsewhere.
The lyricism throughout Rattlin’ Bones attests to this investigation. “Gallatin Road” depicts the lonely nature of life on the road, while showcasing a vulnerability not found in more traditional bluegrass songwriting. Here, there’s an understanding of the kind of catchy country verbiage that gives warnings and tells dramatic tales in the vein of an old nursery rhyme—and you believe it when she sings “anything goes on Gallatin Road.”
On “Virginia Gal,” she pays tribute to her youth. “I would busk multiple times a week on the Downtown Mall,” Bronwyn says. “It ended up giving me a lot of early performance experience and confidence. …That song is deeply connected to my time in Charlottesville.”
Her vocals hold strong on the album, supporting her newfound pursuit of songcraft. The singer-songwriter packs an emotional punch that feels both instinctive and confident, tender and sure. Her vocal gift is particularly evident on “Chasing Storms,” the story of a toxic relationship, and a narrator who is figuring out how to live with it.
“I wouldn’t say it came naturally,” Bronwyn says. “It’s been an all-consuming process learning how to write songs and then trying to write an album’s worth, but it’s been extremely satisfying and I know when I walk out on stage I have something original to say that nobody’s heard before.”
