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Category: Music
Bluegrass Legend Tony Rice just added to Loyal Earth Festival lineup on Friday night, April 17th. visit us at www.LoyalEarth.com
Tony Rice spans the
range of acoustic music, from straight-ahead bluegrass to
jazz-influenced new acoustic music, to songwriter-oriented folk. He is
perhaps the greatest innovator in acoustic flatpicked guitar since
Clarence White. Over the course of his career, he has played alongside
J.D. Crowe and the New South, David Grisman (during the formation of
“Dawg Music”), led his own groups, collaborated with fellow picker
Norman Blake and recorded with his brothers. He has recorded with
drums, piano, soprano sax, and with straight-ahead bluegrass
instrumentation.
Rice was born in
Danville, Virginia but grew up in California, where he was introduced
to bluegrass by his father. He and his brothers learned a lot from hot
L.A. pickers like the Kentucky Colonels, led by Roland and Clarence
White. Crossing paths with fellow enthusiasts like Ry Cooder, Herb
Pederson and Chris Hillman reinforced the strength of the music he had
learned from his father.
In 1970, Rice had
moved back to Kentucky where he played with the Bluegrass Alliance, and
shortly thereafter, J.D. Crowe’s New South. The New South was known as
one of the best and most progressive bluegrass groups - even adding
drums and electric instruments. But when Ricky Skaggs joined up in
1974, the band recorded J.D. Crowe & the New South, an acoustic
album that became Rounder’s top-seller up to that time. With Rice on
guitar and vocals, Crowe on banjo and vocals, Jerry Douglas on Dobro,
Skaggs on fiddle and mandolin and Bobby Slone on bass, the band’s
energy, as well as their instrumental and vocal drive have rarely been
matched.
 Around
this time Rice met mandolinist David Grisman, who played with Red Allen
during the ‘60’s and was now working on some original material that
blended jazz, bluegrass and classical styles. Rice left the New South
and moved to California to join Grisman’s all instrumental group. As
part of the David Grisman Quintet, Rice expanded his horizons beyond
three chord bluegrass, studying chord theory, learning to read charts
and expanding the range of his playing.
 In
1979, he left the group to pursue his own music. He recorded Acoustics,
a guitar-oriented record, and then Manzanita which collected some
favorite folk and bluegrass vocals. In 1980, Rice, Crowe, Bobby Hicks,
Doyle Lawson and Todd Phillips formed a highly successful coalition,
attacking bluegrass standards under the name the Bluegrass Album Band.
This group has recorded six volumes of music.
Tony’s solo career
hit its stride with Cold on the Shoulder, a collection of bluegrass
vocals. With this album, Native American and Me & My Guitar, Rice
arrived at a formula that incorporated his disparate influences,
combining bluegrass, the songwriting of folk artists like Ian Tyson,
Joni Mitchell, Phil Ochs and especially Gordon Lightfoot, with nimble,
jazz-inflected guitar work. Simultaneously, he pursued his jazz and
experimental “spacegrass” with the Tony Rice Unit on Mar West, Still
Inside and Backwaters.
 Two
highly regarded albums with traditional guitar virtuoso Norman Blake
gained a great deal of acclaim, as well as two Rice Brother albums that
reunited him with his younger brother, Wyatt. Tony Rice remains one of
bluegrass’ top instrumentalists and singers, bringing originality and
vitality to everything he plays.
5:16 PM
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