Artist: Bronwyn Keith-Hynes Album: I Built A WorldGenre: Bluegrass Release Date: May 24, 2024

The first time I heard Bronwyn Keith-Hynes play the fiddle was at a concert with Molly Tuttle and The Golden Highway, when the band was making their debut to the bluegrass scene, and I was just beginning to explore the world of bluegrass. As a young violin student, I’d heard a lot of people play the fiddle, but never the way Bronwyn did. Her spirit-filled improvisation and captivating performance made it seem almost like her fiddle and body had melded into one. She immediately became my fiddle-idol, and the reason I fell in love with bluegrass. This past October, Keith-Hynes announced the release of her debut single as the both fiddler and lead vocalist, “Can’t Live Without Love”, which was the launch to her album I Built A World, released May 24th, 2024.

In an interview with Matt Hutchinson from podcast Bluegrass Jam Along, Keith-Hynes claims “I’ve been brewing on this record for a long time.” I Built A World contains one fiddle tune, “Scotty’s Hoedown”, and the rest a collection of songs featuring multiple guest appearances, including bluegrass greats Sam Bush and Jerry Douglas. Country singer Dierks Bentley sings harmony on “Trip Around the Sun”, Darrel Scott on “Angel Island,” Brit Taylor on “Answers,” and Molly Tuttle and Keith-Hyne’s fiance Jason Carter both sing on multiple songs. The band members for the album were Bryan Sutton on guitar, Golden Highway member Dominick Leslie on mandolin, Wesley Corbett and Scott Vestal on banjo, and Jeff Picker on bass. The album was co-produced with the “Legendary Bluegrass engineer in Nashville,” Brent Truitt. It is little to say that this album was a group effort.

Keith-Hynes was originally drawn to the title track “I Built A World”, composed by Matthew Parsons. She heard the song on the radio in Kentucky in 2021, and was drawn to the ambiguity and imaginative nature of the lyrics. Phrases like “heart of a wandering child” reminded her of growing up as a “hippy child”, and “a place and a space in my mind that’s no kind for leaving” of building imaginary worlds in her mind while growing up.

Although it’s easy for people to lose sight of those worlds they built as kids, Keith-Hynes uses her music as a way to continue using her imagination to build worlds of song. She is drawn to the ability that music has to transport us to different worlds, saying, “it’s pretty magical.”

The rest of the album is just that- magical- with a crystalline voice interspersed with fiddle harmonies and swells of different instrumental breaks. Keith-Hynes describes the difference between approaching the album as lead singer versus as a fiddler as “freeing and fun”. She describes the change from being centered around one moment for her to express herself through the fiddle break, to the whole song being a way for her to, as the lyrics to “I Built A World” say, “let my spirit run free just to see what my hands like to make.” 

Bronwyn Keith-Hynes is a two-time International Bluegrass Music Association fiddle player of the year, member of twice grammy award winning Molly Tutle and The Golden Highway, and past member of multiple bands, including Mile 12. With all accolades around her fiddle, she shares how it took time and confidence to begin her solo album as both lead vocalist and fiddle player. “Who’s ready to record a vocal album for the first time?” she says.

Much of Bronwyn’s inspiration came from working alongside guitarist Molly Tuttle and bassist Shelby Means from The Golden Highway. “I’d never been around such great female Bluegrass singers,” she says. Bronwyn’s vision is to continue her wonderful fiddling in bands like Molly Tuttle and The Golden Highway, and being the leader of a band as a “longer-term” pursuit. 

Bronwyn Keith-Hynes is right there with musicians like Molly Tuttle and Billy Strings, who are bringing bluegrass into the light of massive crowds and igniting the genre’s comeback among young audiences. The release of her solo album I Built A World, and all of the current excitement in the bluegrass genre, Bronwyn says that it’s “a really fun time to be in this world.”

As an aspiring bluegrass fiddler and singer myself, I couldn’t be more excited about the space that the bluegrass genre is holding today. I am ever-inspired by Bronwyn’s beautiful fiddling and voice, and the ripples that she is making in the bluegrass community.