Grammy Winning Bronwyn Keith-Hynes is Coming to Groton Hill, more tour dates below!
By Kathy Hicks
The IBMA Fiddle Player of the Year will make her Groton Hill Music Center debut at 7:00PM on Sunday May 3, and I had a chance to have a chat with her to discuss her album, ’I Built A World’, the upcoming tour, her time with Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway, and a little bit of her upbringing and time in Massachusetts and New England.
I started off our conversation asking her about her musical beginnings, and what brought her to the fiddle, and then about her time at Berklee College of Music in Boston. Bronwyn was born in Boston, and her family moved to Vermont when she was around 2-3 years old. When she was three, they were in a downtown mall in Burlington, Vermont and heard violin buskers. This prompted Bronwyn to ask for violin lessons. She started with the Suzuki method, but the teacher also taught fiddle tunes, and she quickly gravitated towards fiddling and only got through Suzuki Book One. Her early stylistic influences shifted over time from the Cape Breton method in Vermont, to Irish fiddling after moving to Virginia at the age of ten. When she was around sixteen, fiddle camps led to her first exposure to Bluegrass music.
She was homeschooled, which allowed her to start college early. She began at Berklee at seventeen, and arrived there the year the American Roots Music Program started. This program brought in many talented bluegrass musicians and helped spark deeper immersion. Some notable peers from her time at Berklee were bandmates from Golden Highway (Molly Tuttle, Domenic Leslie, and Kyle Tuttle), as well as Courtney Hartman, Mike Barnett, Alex Hargreaves, John Mailander, and Sam Grisman. She noted it was a great time to be there, with other talented musicians attending nearby; Sarah Jarosz attending at the Conservatory of Music for example.
After her referencing Molly Tuttle and her other Golden Highway bandmates, we moved on to speaking of her time with GH and the impact it had on her and her career thus far. Bronwyn described touring with Molly Tuttle’s Golden Highway as some of the best years of her life; strong friendships, lots of fun, and major inspiration. Being on the road with a prominent female bluegrass singer felt especially meaningful in a male-dominated genre. She also discussed practical barriers for women singers in bluegrass. When you’re singing the older standards, the original keys are often too low to sing. So there’s an awkwardness in calling out unfamiliar keys in jams. Seeing it “normalized” nightly was really encouraging.
Golden Highway’s stage energy and showmanship pushed Bronwyn to move more on stage and feel less self-conscious. Having multiple women in the band also felt empowering in terms of wardrobe/fashion choices, and with self-expression, not feeling judged for crop tops or shorts for example. She described reclaiming parts of herself —fashion and dance— that previously didn’t feel like they belonged in her “bluegrass life.”
One thing that stands out for her as a real memorable influence was playing at a Grammy party near the Italian rock band Måneskin; the band joked “What would Måneskin do?” as a way to push their own performance energy. Bronwyn highlighted that Golden Highway often played to audiences not typically exposed to bluegrass; Mainstream Country festivals and opening slots. They saw strong audience reception; noting that the Bluegrass reach is changing, and she cited Billy Strings’ popularity having a hand in its expansion.
I asked her about her solo album, and how it came about, and how she was able to pull all the amazing collaborators together. Bronwyn’s interest in singing ramped up during the pandemic via Zoom voice lessons, and it continued through the Golden Highway era. She recorded the vocal-forward Bluegrass album, ‘I Built A World’, in 2023 with initially low expectations. It was really more as a learning project, and she was hoping for some radio play and was not necessarily planning to tour it.
A weekly Monday-night gig in Nashville at Dee’s Lounge with a rotating pickup band became a key catalyst. She realized how much she loved fronting and performing locally. As Golden Highway wrapped up, Molly communicated plans for a new record and a different sound. Molly offered Bronwyn a spot in the new configuration, but Bronwyn was simultaneously testing a few shows outside Nashville that went well. Bronwyn felt the timing was right and as an artist, that change/growth is normal.
She received a Grammy nomination for the album (self-released), which felt surprising and like a sign to pursue solo work more seriously. She reflected that she had done multiple “ways” of making a living in music, including Mile Twelve and some side work, but she hadn’t been a front person before. Solo touring now feels fresh and motivating.
I asked her about the number of incredible collaborators she got for her album, which included Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Dudley Connell, and Dierks Bentley, and her connection to them. She got to know Jerry Douglas through Molly’s projects, Jerry produced the ‘City of Gold’ and ‘Crooked Tree’ records, and he frequently guested at shows; so he came to feel like “Uncle Jerry.” She met Sam Bush more through mutual circles, including Wes Corbett playing in Sam’s band, who played with her on ‘Happy Hollow’. Her husband, Jason Carter, had also known both Jerry and Sam for years. Jason encouraged her to ask “her heroes” to be on the record.
“Nobody said no,” Bronwyn said, kind of disbelievingly, chuckling. She described the novelty of hearing her recorded voice for the first time and pairing it with other vocalists. She cited the surprise of hearing Dierks Bentley’s voice next to hers, and gave some love for Bentley’s Up on the Ridge era.
We finished up our chat talking about the Boston area and what she’s looking forward to coming back here if she has time. She said, though sadly the tour probably won’t allow time to visit, her top choice would have to be Walden Pond, she has fond memories of swimming there. She’s excited to be coming back to the northeast and can’t wait to see friends, fans and familiar faces.
This show is already SOLD OUT so if you’ve been lucky enough to snag your tickets, I’ll see you there!
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