Longtime Northern California bluegrass artists Molly Tuttle and Keith Little are the recipients of the Whippoorwill Arts/FreshGrass Artist Awards for their musical accomplishments, extraordinary talent, community spirit and creative souls.
Tuttle and Little will each receive a $25,000 unrestricted grant, awarded by the FreshGrass Foundation and made possible by generous donations from Whippoorwill Arts.
Honorees were selected by a committee of roots musicians and music industry executives. The awards will be formally presented at a special event co-hosted by Nell Robinson and Jim Nunally of Whippoorwill Arts and Chris Wadsworth of the FreshGrass Foundation. Presentations will be announced at a later date.
Emerging Artist winner Tuttle, a Palo Alto native now based in Nashville, won the 2017 International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) Award for Guitarist of the Year, becoming the first woman to win the award. Her latest album is titled Rise. She is best known to NCBS members as a performer with The Tuttles With AJ Lee.
Master Artist winner Little lives in the Sierra Foothills where he is known as “the bluegrass voice of gold country.” He has performed on Grammy Award-winning recordings The Grass is Blue and Little Sparrow by Dolly Parton. Along with leading The LittleBand, he operates Slate Mountain Music.
Whippoorwill Arts supports creativity, respect and love for artists in the the roots music community. It reached out to the FreshGrass Foundation for the new Artists Awards. Other projects include Music Home Project, Banjo Boy Coffee, and the Nell & Jim Band which has performed at festivals and venues across the U.S. and Canada.
The FreshGrass Foundation is dedicated to preserving, promoting and creating innovative grassroots music. The foundation publishes “No Depression,” the quarterly journal of roots music and online hub for roots music fans; awards grants and commissions to emerging and established writers and performers; and produces FreshGrass, an annual festival of bluegrass and roots music in North Adams, Massachusetts.
Tuttle and Robinson are both longtime members of the Northern California Bluegrass Society.
