Acclaimed bluegrass guitarist, Tony Rice, has died at the age of 69. I fell in love with his acoustic music in the 1980s. He recorded a series of albums merging folk, bluegrass, and jazz that remain some of my favourite acoustic music.
Born in Virginia, Rice moved with his family to Los Angeles as a child and along with several musical family members was immersed in the bluegrass scene there. Soon the family was traveling and relocating frequently, and Rice, who started playing mandolin, switched to guitar. At a bluegrass festival in North Carolina, he met the Kentucky Colonels’ Clarence White, picking up stylistic tips from him and many other musicians he would meet early in his career, including David Grisman, and developing a virtuosic flatpicking style that folded jazz and other genres into the once-rigid confines of bluegrass.
Over his career, Rice brought his one-of-a-kind picking and singing to ensembles including J.D. Crowe & The New South, David Grisman Quintet, Tony Rice Unit, and the Bluegrass Album Band, and he became known for collaborations with Ricky Skaggs, Norman Blake, Béla Fleck, Peter Rowan, Chris Hillman, and his own brothers, Larry, Wyatt, and Ronnie.
Players and fans will point to different albums in Rice’s catalog as touchstones, but Manzanita, released by Tony Rice Unit in 1979, is considered by many his masterpiece. Backed by Sam Bush, Ricky Skaggs, Jerry Douglas, David Grisman, Darol Anger, and Todd Phillips, Rice marries traditional bluegrass and folk with his wide progressive lens, creating unforgettable versions of classic jam-circle songs like “Little Sadie” and “Blackberry Blossom” that fit perfectly alongside fresher numbers like Merle Travis’ “Nine Pound Hammer” and The Delmore Brothers’ “Blue Railroad Train.”
Here's a link to Devlin, which contains some of my favourite instrumental performances of his, including songs from the sadly out-of-print Still Inside.
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