Sierra Hull: Tiny Desk Concert

VPM | By Kara Frame

Published August 1, 2025 at 9:00 AM EDT

On a cold and snowy night this past winter, Sierra Hull and her band brought bluegrass to Washington, D.C. Despite the frigid temperatures outside, barefoot fans danced as if at a summer music festival. Ever since she first picked up the instrument at a young age, the mandolin virtuoso has captivated audiences; it’s no surprise that she still owns the stage two decades later.

At the Tiny Desk months later, her set features four songs from A Tip Toe High Wire, her latest album. “Boom” and “Lord, That’s a Long Way” showcase her incredibly fast, fingerpicking abilities. Before performing the third song, Hull tells the audience, “My granny lived such a crazy life in her 80 years that we got to have her. I didn’t get to play this song for her before she passed, but I did tell her I was writing a song for her called ‘Spitfire.’ ” Hull’s granny experienced the Great Depression in rural Tennessee, was widowed twice and buried a son — she lived a life of hardship, but remained resilient and rebellious in the face of it all.

Hull digs deep in her songwriting, admitting that sometimes she doesn’t know what a song’s about until it’s done. That’s the undercurrent of “Muddy Water,” which encourages its listener to show yourself as you truly are; Hull now knows that she needs to hear that wisdom as much as us.

SET LIST

“Boom”
“Lord, That’s a Long Way”
“Spitfire”
“Muddy Water”

MUSICIANS

Sierra Hull: vocals, mandolin, guitar
Shaun Richardson: guitar, background vocals
Avery Merritt: fiddle, guitar, background vocals
Erik Coveney: bass
Mark Raudabaugh: drums

TINY DESK TEAM

Producer: Kara Frame
Director: Joshua Bryant
Audio Technical Director: Josh Newell
Host/Series Producer: Bobby Carter
Video Editor: Maia Stern
Videographers: Joshua Bryant, Kara Frame, Sofia Seidel
Audio Engineer: David Greenburg
Production Assistant: Dhanika Pineda
Photographer: Zayrha Rodriguez
Executive Producer: Suraya Mohamed
Series Creators: Bob Boilen, Stephen Thompson, Robin Hilton

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Kara Frame

Kara Frame is a video producer and director for NPR Music's Tiny Desk Concerts series. To sum up what she loves most about working on the iconic series, she says, "We put joy into the world." In addition to this work, she manages the NPR Music Instagram account. Prior to her work on the music team, she crafted stories about housing segregation in Baltimore, Md., motherhood in a refugee camp in Lesbos, Greece, and food deserts in Washington, D.C.

Frame's personal projects have focused primarily on veterans and PTSD. In 2016, her short documentary I Will Go Back Tonight was awarded first place for long-form multimedia at the NPPA Northern Short Course.

In her free time, Frame volunteers with Women Photojournalists of Washington (WPOW), a 501c3 nonprofit dedicated to educating the public about the role of women in visual journalism and fostering their professional success. She organizes the annual WPOW portfolio review and seminar, an event that invites visual journalists of all career levels to share their work with some of the world's top editors from organizations such as NPR, National Geographic, Washington Post, The New York Times, Vox, Smithsonian Magazine, among many others.

Before starting at NPR in 2016, Frame received a B.A. in African-American Studies from Temple University in Philadelphia, Pa., and a M.A in New Media Photojournalism from the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. When she's not working on videos or volunteering with WPOW, you can find her in her garden, hosting a dinner for friends or getting lost in the woods in her teardrop camper, Sunshine.

See stories by Kara Frame