Rhiannon Giddens and Molly Tuttle are featured in a new exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum that highlights significant developments in country music over the past year. The exhibit, American Currents: State of the Music, opened at the Nashville museum last night and runs until February 2024. Presented annually, American Currents explores musical developments, artist achievements, and notable events, as determined by the museum’s curators and editorial staff.

“It meant so much to me to include my grandfather’s guitar,” says Tuttle, whose display includes both the guitar and clothing pictured on the cover of her 2022 Grammy-winning album, Crooked Tree, as well as handwritten lyric sheets and more. “He saw Hank Williams perform while serving in the Air Force in Louisiana and was inspired to pick up a guitar. When he returned to the family farm in Illinois he brought this Gretsch with him. My father learned to play on this guitar and they had a family bluegrass band together. In the spring of '21 I went back to Illinois to visit my grandmother and we drove down the road to see the old farm. The barns were run down and the house where my dad grew up was boarded up with broken windows and overgrown weeds. Still so many happy memories came flooding back, and I remembered playing music with my grandfather in the yard and listening to hank Williams and Elizabeth Cotton together. When I returned to Nashville, I brought his guitar with me, determined to fix it up, and I also brought back so many song ideas that would end up on Crooked Tree. I dedicated Crooked Tree to my grandfather, Gerald Tuttle, because he passed down the love of music to my father who passed it down to me. I wish he was around to see his guitar in the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum!”

Giddens display celebrates her 2021 Grammy-winning album, They’re Calling Me Home, including her handwritten lyric sheet for “Si Dolce è'l Tormento,” the notebook engineer Ben Rawlins kept to document the six days of tracking, the microphone schedule with mic list for the instruments, and the set list from National Concert Hall in Dublin, the only concert where the record was performed exactly as recorded. Also included are the poster for Giddens’ concert with Our Native Daughters at Carnegie Hall, part of her season-long Perspectives series there; the book development printout pre-binding for her debut book, Build a House; and the score for Omar, her acclaimed opera with Michael Abels.

“Each year through the American Currents exhibit, the museum documents and reports on the music and events that helped shape the previous year, examining a wide scope of contributions,” said Kyle Young, chief executive officer of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. “Last year, we witnessed innovative collaborations, varied musical perspectives and well-deserved honors for emerging artists and established luminaries. American Currents allows us to highlight these moments and artists, sharing their significance in country music history.”

For more information about American Currents: State of the Music, visit here.