Review: Molly Tuttle + Joshua Ray Walker at The Orange Peel

One of the best female guitar players on the planet, Molly Tuttle showcased her all-new, all-female band at The Orange Peel on Sept. 27 to great success. These fresh additions diversified her sound in impressive ways while carrying on her longstanding tradition with her previous band, Golden Highway, of delivering energetic shows.

Warming up the crowd, fellow Americana/country singer/songwriter Joshua Ray Walker performed solo, playing mostly older songs on his acoustic guitar and connecting them with stories that fully engaged the crowd. The son of a truck driver with whom he’d ride and meet unusual characters at truck stops during their long hauls, Walker writes from the heart and has a gift with spinning non-musical yarns as well, be it stories from the road or about his health struggles.

He can also crack up a room as well as the best stand-up comics. At one point, he recalled touring with Charley Crockett in 2021 and someone in the peanut gallery asked why he was wearing a cowboy hat. His off-the-cuff response wound up being the first lines of his song, “Outlaw,” which he then performed:

Any hats a cowboy hat, if it's sittin’ on my head 
Just like every girls a cowgirl, if she's layin’ in my bed.

(Photos by Bryce Lafoon)

Molly Tuttle

Joshua Ray Walker