Dierks Bentley, Molly Tuttle Cover Tom Petty at 2024 CMA Awards

Those in the know classify Dierks Bentley’s 2010 bluegrass detour, Up on the backas his best all-around album. During Wednesday night’s 2024 CMA Awards, the country singer scratched that string music again, performing a version of Tom Petty’s 1977 anthem “American Girl” as a bluegrass rave-up with a trio of musical aces: Molly Tuttle on guitar, Sierra Hull on mandolin and Bronwyn Keith-Hynes on violin.

Bentley’s rendition of “American Girl” originally appeared on this year’s tribute album to the late Heartbreakers frontman, Petty Country: A Country Music Celebration of Tom Petty.

That a song by a rock artist was chosen to close the CMAs should come as no surprise. Petty, who died in 2017, is arguably country music’s biggest rock influence; and he and the Heartbreakers incorporated elements of country music into their own songs. “We all grew up in the South and were steeped in the music of Hank Williams and George Jones that we heard on the radio,” Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell shared RS earlier this year. “We all loved the Flying Burrito Brothers and the Byrds when they went country (on Lover of Rodeo). We listened to a lot of country, and some of that seeped into our consciousness.”

As for Bentley, this isn’t the first time he’s shared the stage with Tuttle, the Grammy-winning singer-guitarist who’s helping bring bluegrass into the future. In 2023, they performed Townes Van Zandt’s “White Freight Liner Blues” together at a show in Toronto; Tuttle and her band Golden Highway opened select dates on Bentley’s Gravel & Gold tour.

Charlie Worsham, a regular member of Bentley’s touring band — who was named CMA’s Musician of the Year tonight — also played “American Girl” at the CMA Awards. Like Bentley, he is a fellow disciple of bluegrass and raved about Bentley’s bluegrass bona fides RS in 2023. “Dierks has a longstanding mantra of mixing kick-ass with bluegrass,” Worsham said. “Throughout his long career he has made a number of records with mandolin, banjo, Dobro, lone harmony, fiddle, steel guitar and chicken-picked Telecasters. He has a deep respect for ‘liner note folk’ and he leans on the expertise of great musicians , great songwriters and great producers to manage his record-making process.”