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Tony Rice | |
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 Rice in 2006 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | David Anthony Rice (1951-06-08)June 8, 1951 Danville, Virginia, U.S. |
| Origin | Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Died | December 25, 2020(2020-12-25) (aged 69) |
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| Instrument | Guitar |
| Years active | 1970–2013 |
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David Anthony Rice (June 8, 1951 – December 25, 2020) was an Americanbluegrass guitarist and singer. He was an influential acoustic guitar player in bluegrass, progressive bluegrass, newgrass and acoustic jazz.[1][2] He was inducted into theInternational Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 2013.[3]
Rice's music spans the range of acoustic music from traditional bluegrass to jazz influenced, New Acoustic music to songwriter-orientedfolk. Over the course of his career, he played alongsideJ. D. Crowe andthe New South,David Grisman (during the formation of Dawg Music) andJerry Garcia, led his own band, the Tony Rice Unit, collaborated withNorman Blake, recorded with his brothersWyatt, Ron, andLarry, and co-founded theBluegrass Album Band. Over the course of his career, he recorded with drums, piano and soprano sax as well as with traditional bluegrass instruments.[4][5]
Rice was born inDanville, Virginia, Growing up, he had somewhat of a nomadic childhood. In search of work, his family moved around a lot living in several states, including Florida, Georgia, Texas, and North Carolina. They settled in Los Angeles, California, where his father, Herb Rice, introduced him to bluegrass music. Herb was a mandolin player and taught each of his four sons how to play. Tony andWyatt were taught guitar,Larry the mandolin, and Ronnie the upright bass. Rice and his brothers learned the fundamentals of bluegrass and country music from L.A. musicians like theKentucky Colonels, led byRoland andClarence White. When the Rice family moved to California, Herb joined the Golden State Boys, which was a group inspired by the Kentucky Colonels. In 1960, when Rice was nine years old, he metClarence White, his all-time favorite guitarist, at a show. Rice was so enamored that White allowed him to try out his 1935 D-28 Martin. This guitar was famous for having an enlarged sound hole. Rice never forgot this moment. So much so that in 1975, Rice purchased this guitar. This guitar “became iconic in his hands” and became famously known by its serial number, 58957. Clarence White's guitar playing in particular was a huge influence on Rice, adding elements beyond those ofDoc Watson's adventurous, fiddle influenced style. Crossing paths with fellow enthusiasts likeRy Cooder,Herb Pedersen andChris Hillman reinforced the strength of the music he had learned from his father.[6][7]
In 1971, Rice met Kate Freeman, whom he married in a Lexington church a year later. The couple moved to California when Rice joined David Grisman in creating Grisman'sDawg, a newly imagined form of acoustic music. Rice and Kate ended things in 1979.[8] Tony later married Pam Rice with whom he remained until his death in 2020.
Mandolinist and fiddlerSam Bush tells the story about first hearing Rice in 1970 at a campfire at Carlton Haney's bluegrass festival inReidsville, North Carolina. Bush, who at the time was playing guitar in the Bluegrass Alliance after Dan Crary left, brought Rice to the group.
That year, Rice moved toLouisville, Kentucky, playing with the Bluegrass Alliance and shortly thereafter withJ.D. Crowe's New South.The New South was known as one of the best and most progressive bluegrass groups, eventually adding drums and electric instruments to Rice's displeasure. WhenRicky Skaggs joined them in 1974, however, the band recordedJ. D. Crowe & the New South, an acoustic album that became Rounder Records' top seller up to that time. At that point, the group was Rice on guitar and lead vocals, J.D. on banjo and vocals,Jerry Douglas onDobro, Skaggs on fiddle, mandolin, and tenor vocals, and Bobby Slone on bass and fiddle.
Around this time, Rice met mandolinistDavid Grisman while recording forBill Keith's first album withRounder Records calledSomething Auld, Something Newgrass, Something Borrowed, Something Bluegrass.[8] Grisman played withRed Allen and the Kentuckians during the 1960s after Frank Wakefield left and who was now working on original material that blended jazz, bluegrass, and classical music. Rice left the New South and moved to California to join Grisman's all-instrumental group, theDavid Grisman Quintet. In order to broaden his expertise and make himself more marketable, Rice studied chord theory, learned to read charts, and began to expand his playing beyond bluegrass. GuitaristJohn Carlini came in to teach Rice music theory, and Carlini helped him learn the intricacies of jazz playing and musical improvisation in general. The David Grisman Quintet's 1977 debut recording is considered a landmark of acoustic string band music.
In 1980, Rice, Crowe, fiddlerBobby Hicks, mandolinistDoyle Lawson and bassistTodd Phillips formed theBluegrass Album Band and recorded several successful albums forRounder Records from 1980 to 1996.
Following that with the Tony Rice Unit, he pursued experimental "spacegrass" music on theMar West,Still Inside, andBackwaters albums. Members of the Unit includedJimmy Gaudreau (mandolin),Wyatt Rice (guitar), Ronnie Simpkins (bass), John Reischman (mandolin), andRickie Simpkins (fiddle). In the late 1980s,Alison Krauss regularly played with the group in concert for about a year though she never recorded with them.Alison Brown also guested with the group during that time.[9]
In 1980, he recorded a successful album of traditional bluegrass duets with Ricky Skaggs calledSkaggs & Rice. He followed that with two albums alongside traditional instrumentalist and songwriterNorman Blake both well received and twoRice Brothers albums (1992 and 1994) that featured him teamed with his late elder brother, Larry, and younger brothers, Wyatt and Ronnie.
Beginning in 1984, Rice collaborated on four albums with bluegrass banjo playerBéla Fleck –Double Time (1984),Drive (1988),Tales from the Acoustic Planet (1995), andThe Bluegrass Sessions: Tales from the Acoustic Planet, Vol. 2 (1999).
Rice joined David Grisman and Jerry Garcia in 1993 to recordThe Pizza Tapes. In 1994, Rice and Grisman recordedTone Poems, an original collection of material where they used historical, vintage mandolins and guitars, different ones for each track.
In 1994, Rice joinedMark Johnson to recordClawgrass, Mark Johnson with the Rice Brothers and Friends which featured Tony and his brothersLarry Rice, Wyatt and Ronnie.
In 1995, Rice recorded a duo album with John Carlini who also played with theDavid Grisman Quintet.
In 1997, Rice, his brother Larry,Chris Hillman (formerly of theFlying Burrito Brothers andthe Byrds) and banjoistHerb Pedersen founded the so-called anti-supergroupRice, Rice, Hillman & Pedersen[10] and produced three albums between 1997 and 2001.
In the 2000s and 2010s, he performed in a quartet with guitarist/singer-songwriterPeter Rowan, bassistBryn Bright (later known asBryn Davies), and mandolinistBilly Bright (replaced bySharon Gilchrist).
In 1979, Rice left Grisman's group to recordAcoustics, a jazz inspired album followed byManzanita,[11] a bluegrass and folk album. On albums that followed,Church Street Blues,Cold on the Shoulder,Me & My Guitar, andNative American, he combined bluegrass, jazzy guitar work and the songwriting ofIan Tyson,Joni Mitchell,Phil Ochs,Tom Paxton,Bob Dylan,Gordon Lightfoot andMary Chapin Carpenter.
Rice's singing voice was a rich, distinctive baritone. In 1994, he was diagnosed with a disorder known asmuscle tension dysphonia and as a result was forced to stop singing in live performance.[12] A 2014 diagnosis oflateral epicondylitis ("tennis elbow") made guitar playing painful and his last performance playing guitar live was when he was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 2013. In 2015, he said "I am not going to go back out into the public eye until I can be the musician that I was, where I left off or better. I have been blessed with a very devout audience all these years and I am certainly not going to let anybody down. I am not going to risk going out there and performing in front of people again until I can entertain them in a way that takes away from them the rigors and the dust, the bumps in the road of everyday life."[13]
The authorized biography of Tony Rice, calledStill Inside: The Tony Rice Story, written byTim Stafford and Hawaii-based journalist Caroline Wright, was published by Word of Mouth Press inKingsport, Tennessee, United States in 2010. The book's official release was atMerlefest inNorth Carolina that year.[14][15]
Rice died at his home inReidsville, North Carolina, on December 25, 2020,[16] at age 69.
Tony Rice "redefined bluegrass guitar playing and left a lasting imprint on the genre."[17]David Grisman called Rice "a complete musician of the highest caliber"[18] and Ricky Skaggs said he was "the single most influential acoustic guitar player in the last 50 years."[18]
Although Rice's guitar playing was colorful and recognizable, flash was not his aim. His rhythm playing was driving and clear, while his solos were strategic and melodic. Rice stepped outside of what any other guitarist was doing at the time. Doing this, he raised the bar of what a bluegrass guitar player could do. Tony Rice was one of the most influential bluegrass guitar players of all time.[19]
In a lesson exploring Rice's style, guitaristMolly Tuttle said "the beauty of Tony's playing is that there's something for everyone to learn from. I've been playing guitar for a long time and I still go back to this and just want to listen to him strum the guitar."[20] Rice was a big influence on the bluegrass bandPunch Brothers who devoted their albumHell on Church Street as a tribute to Rice and to his 1983 albumChurch Street Blues.[21][22] Members of the Punch Brothers band said that Rice's earlier albums had a huge impact on their music.[22] In addition, guitaristChris Eldridge was a student of Rice's.[23] The group had intended that their album be a surprise gift to Rice but he died before they could finish it.[22]
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