Courtney Hartman is a flatpicking guitarist, singer, and songwriter from Loveland, Colorado. She co-founded the bluegrass band Della Mae in Boston in 2009 and played guitar in it for about seven years. With Della Mae she won IBMA Emerging Artist of the Year in 2013 and earned a Grammy nomination in 2014. Since leaving the band she has released solo and duo records that mix flatpicking with folk songwriting.
Why Hartman matters
Hartman brought clean, melodic flatpicking into an all-woman bluegrass band at a time when few women toured as lead guitarists. Her breaks with Della Mae showed a generation of jammers that the Tony Rice approach fits a modern song band. Her later solo work shows how a bluegrass right hand can serve quiet, original songs.
Life and career
Hartman grew up on a family farm in Loveland, Colorado, with nine siblings. Five of them played in a family band. She started violin at age three with the Suzuki method, then took up mandolin and piano. She began guitar at eleven and wrote her first song at twelve.
She studied American roots music at Berklee College of Music in Boston, where John McGann mentored her. In 2009 she co-founded Della Mae at Berklee with Kimber Ludiker, Grace Van’t Hof, Jenni Lyn Gardner, and Amanda Kowalski. The band released I Built This Heart in 2011 and signed to Rounder for This World Oft Can Be in 2013. That record earned a Grammy nomination for Best Bluegrass Album at the 2014 awards. Della Mae also won IBMA Emerging Artist of the Year in 2013. The band released Della Mae on Rounder in 2015 and paused touring in May 2016.
Hartman then turned to her own work. She released the EP Nothing We Say in 2016, Dear John with Robert Ellis in 2017 (a record of John Hartford songs), and Been on Your Side with Taylor Ashton in 2018 on Free Dirt. Her first full solo album, Ready Reckoner, came out in 2019. She co-produced it with Shahzad Ismaily, Tucker Martine mixed it, and Bill Frisell and Anaïs Mitchell appear as guests. She recorded Glade (2021) on her own at the family farm, playing guitar, bass, and violin. She now lives in Wisconsin. Her album With You followed in 2025, and in June 2026 she released With You: From the Garden Shed, a stripped-down re-recording of that record.
Playing style
Hartman plays with a light, even right hand and a strong sense of melody. On fiddle tunes she keeps the tune out front and adds ornaments in the Tony Rice tradition. She favors small-bodied guitars for solo work. Her Bourgeois connection began in 2012, when she asked Dana Bourgeois to borrow a guitar at the IBMA booth.
On her solo records she often plays with a softer attack. She uses open strings and ringing chord voicings under her singing. The result sounds more like folk than bluegrass, but the pick technique underneath comes from flatpicking.
Influences and legacy
Hartman names Doc Watson, Norman Blake, Tony Rice, Alison Krauss, and Laurie Lewis as influences. She also cites Colorado guitarist Rebecca Frazier as an early model. In Della Mae she played beside fiddler Kimber Ludiker. She has recorded with Bill Frisell, Robert Ellis, and Taylor Ashton, and she teaches at guitar camps.
Signature tunes and songs
Finis Terrae Willow and Oak January 1st Matter of Time.
Essential recordings
This World Oft Can Be, with Della Mae (Rounder, 2013) Dear John, with Robert Ellis (2017) Ready Reckoner (2019) Glade (2021)
Awards and honors
IBMA Emerging Artist of the Year, with Della Mae (2013) Grammy nomination, Best Bluegrass Album, with Della Mae for This World Oft Can Be (2014)
Watch and listen
Hartman plays a fiddle tune for Acoustic Guitar magazine on a Bourgeois guitar built in the Tony Rice style. Watch how she keeps the melody clear at speed.
Hartman plays Finis Terrae solo. Listen to how she lets open strings ring under the melody.
What to learn from Hartman
Learn a fiddle tune from her Della Mae years, then play it under a vocal at half the tempo. The technique to steal is her use of open strings. Find the melody notes that fall on open strings in G or D and let them ring against fretted notes. That trick fills space in a solo or a duo without adding speed, and it works in a jam when you need a quiet break.
Sources
Courtney Hartman, D’Addario Artists Courtney Hartman, AllMusic biography Courtney Hartman: Journeys, Paths, and Evolution, The Bluegrass Standard Returning to the Family Farm, Courtney Hartman Prepared a Space for Glade, The Bluegrass Situation Della Mae, Wikipedia Della Mae, IBMA award recipients Courtney Hartman, Bourgeois Guitars Courtney Hartman, Bandcamp Review: Courtney Hartman, With You, Americana Highways
Related players
See the guitar players hub and the guitar guide for more flatpickers. Hartman learned from Tony Rice and Rebecca Frazier. Molly Tuttle came up in the same era of women leading on flatpicked guitar. Her Della Mae bandmate Kimber Ludiker has a page in the fiddle section.