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Thread: RIP Tony Rice

  1. #51
    Registered User pickinNgrinnin's Avatar
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    Default Re: RIP Tony Rice

    In the early 80’s, a friend sent me a cassette tape of Tony’s Manzanita album, and that was my introduction. His singing and playing made me an instant fan. Years later, and after he lost his voice, I saw him play with Peter Rowan at a bar in Kansas City. I remember feeling annoyed by the people in the bar talking away while they played. I also remember sitting close enough to see him playing bass runs. So many music giants lost this year. R.I.P. Tony.

  2. #52
    Registered User Marcus CA's Avatar
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    Default Re: RIP Tony Rice

    Tony boldly took the bluegrass guitar where no bluegrass guitar had gone before --- a cause and effect of his participation on the first couple of David Grisman Quintet albums. I still find his solos on the first DGQ album gorgeous and jawdropping --- and that was when he was in his mid-20's. I love the Dawg and T live album from twenty years later, too, because it's just the two of them, so you can really tune into what they both are doing.

    In this video, I'm not sure if Tony could legally drink yet, but he sure was ready for prime time. The mando player went pretty far, too.

    still trying to turn dreams into memories

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  4. #53
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    Default Re: RIP Tony Rice

    Tony Rice is THE STANDARD by which every other great acoustic guitarist is measured. Every new hot guitar picker causes a certain question among fans of acoustic guitar:

    “how does he compare to Rice?”

    I saw The Unit in Frederick, MD. They followed Paul Adkins and Borderline. Upon taking the stage, Rice respectfully said, “How about the performance by Paul Adkins and Borderline...these cats ain’t nobody’s fool.” That’s my favorite Rice line.

    Bob
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  5. #54

    Default Re: RIP Tony Rice

    Got to see him a few times at Telluride and RockyGrass. There's some great live shows circulating from when he could still sing--at the Parting Glass in Saratoga Springs with the Unit and with Bela, Sam, Jerry, et. al., at the Birchmere right after Bela's Drive album was recorded.

    When he ended a solo with a G run on that old Bone--that was the most powerful thing I've ever heard, lifted you right out of your seat. Such style, grace, and tone. RIP Tony.
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  7. #55
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    Default Re: RIP Tony Rice

    Wow, so sad to hear. He was truly one of the great players that influenced so many of us. RIP Tony.
    A quarter tone flat and a half a beat behind.

  8. #56
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    Default Re: RIP Tony Rice

    So many nice tributes here and on social media...links to great concert footage, cool photos. I re-read this great article in Fretboard about the history of Tony's D-28, his love for the old "Bone" - worth checking out https://www.fretboardjournal.com/fea...NAYkLiv5ajpD08
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  10. #57
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    Default Re: RIP Tony Rice

    Farewell Mr. Rice. You were a musical colossus. RIP.

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    Default Re: RIP Tony Rice

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  12. #59
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    Default Re: RIP Tony Rice

    Spent some time last night listening to some old vinyl. First disc Skaggs and Rice first track Bury Me Beneath the Willow. Kinda appropriate. Great album . Next Don Reno and Friends. Favorite track Don and Tony both on guitar playing Freight Train Boogie. Go get it son! You could tell they were having some fun on that one. Then Hot Dawg with Grossman Quartet. A little California Autumn and of course New South 0044. Amazing how he could play in these varied styles and always sound so incredible
    And I still have some more vinyl and of course CDs to listen to. Thanks for all the great music Tony.

  13. #60
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    Default Re: RIP Tony Rice

    Nice article in Rolling Stone this afternoon.

    https://www.rollingstone.com/music/m...egacy-1108100/

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    Default Re: RIP Tony Rice

    Mark O'Connor wrote a nice tribute for him in a FB post the other day ... excerpt:

    We lost a giant of the guitar on Christmas yesterday. Of course it all comes flooding through the mind, how many times we played together since we first met in 1975. I will have to describe it all at a later date. Tony was my hero on the guitar that really mattered to me – on the dreadnought Martin D-28 – the sound of it, and the sound of him. It was everything. I was analyzing his guitar licks off the early albums when I was 13 and 14, but when I played with him shortly after, I made sure I didn’t quote him because that would be in bad taste. I wanted to be playing alongside of him, not at him, but he knew how much he meant to me.

    I was privileged to have him play on my Markology guitar album and even more so, when he asked me to be the first violinist for the Tony Rice Unit, only to have to bow out because of my commitment already made to David Grisman Quintet - to replace Tony… stories that pull and tug at you when it comes to the precious souls of the music.

    I suppose the bluegrass we played together in the first couple of years of MerleFest was the height of my bluegrass experience, and I think for many it was the pinnacle for the generation. I think this back and forth that Tony and I had throughout our lives helped make me a better guitar player, that I know. He pushed me out in the San Fran Bay area, and we kept doing it all through the years, but musically we always had each other’s back when we played.

    Tony, always told me that you have to stand for one instrument. One instrument only, to be a really great musician. And of course I was born to be a multi-instrumentalist. So every time I played either the fiddle or the guitar, I put everything I had into it, to make sure Tony’s message to me was being listened to, that it was resonating. It was a tall order, a mentor that is as great as he is – the greatest, and who becomes a playing partner too…but at times critical of what I was attempting to do in my early days, the choices I had to make back then, is heady stuff.

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  17. #62
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    Default Re: RIP Tony Rice

    Quote Originally Posted by Louise NM View Post
    Nice article in Rolling Stone this afternoon.

    https://www.rollingstone.com/music/m...egacy-1108100/
    Shared:

    Rice emerged in the vanguard of bluegrass music when he joined bandleader J.D. Crowe in the early 1970s. Crowe shook up bluegrass music by inviting Rice, a lover of folk music, to bring in songs such as “Summer Wages” (Ian Tyson) and “You Are What I Am” (Gordon Lightfoot) and generously showcasing the picking and singing of Rice and the rising star Ricky Skaggs. Together with their boss, Skaggs and Rice formed the nucleus of the J.D. Crowe and the New South album released in 1975. Known affectionately today by its catalog number “0044,” many consider it the greatest album ever recorded in bluegrass. It soared on Crowe’s brisk banjo and Skaggs’ joyous tenor singing. But Rice’s solid flatpicking guitar style and heartbreaking lead vocals anchored the sound.

    Many purists sniffed at the diverse set list and freewheeling arrangements of “0044,” but 45 years later fans still celebrate the album. It ranks among the reasons that bluegrass freely accepts experimentation today.

    Beginning in the 1960s, the young guitarist played in a series of regional bands, but his pace accelerated in 1970 when he took over lead vocals for the Bluegrass Alliance based in Louisville, Kentucky, which featured mandolinist Sam Bush and liberally married bluegrass and newer musical styles. “Rice was a step above most of the people who played with the band at the time,” recalls Harry Bickel, a champion of bluegrass music in Louisville in the Seventies.

    Meanwhile, J.D. Crowe had hired Tony’s older brother Larry to play mandolin. In an interview from his home near Lexington, Kentucky, Crowe told Rolling Stone that it wasn’t long before he enlisted Tony too. On Labor Day weekend of 1971, Tony played his last gig with the Bluegrass Alliance at the bluegrass festival in Camp Springs, North Carolina, which would be filmed by director Albert Ihde for his 1972 documentary Bluegrass Country Soul. Crowe was also playing the festival and he needed the wiry lead singer as badly as the Bluegrass Alliance did. Discerning fans of the documentary classic will know that Tony appeared with both bands that weekend: in paisley with the Bluegrass Alliance and in a starched white shirt with Crowe.

    Rice’s four years with Crowe was like university training. “When he first came with me,” says Crowe, “he was trying to play everything he knew in one break, and I’d tell him, ‘Play the melody of the song first. You can have your ins and outs there, but let the melody stand out first. Timing and melody, that’s what you go with.’ Nobody had ever explained it to him that way.”

    Thanks to their regular gig at the Holiday Inn in Lexington, where they played five nights a week, Crowe’s band evolved into a precisely calibrated locomotive. “We had gotten to the point that we knew what each other was thinking by just looking at each other, and that’s a great feeling to have,” explains Crowe. “Tony was very good at paying attention because whatever he was playing he wanted it right, as good as he could get it. I loved that because there’s so many pickers that don’t feel that way.”

    “We were not only pickers together, we were friends. Losing Tony was like losing a brother.” – J.D. Crowe

    In the wake of the innovative “0044,” Rice met jazz-folk-bluegrass fusionist David Grisman in California. “Grisman came home with me to Kentucky and he sat in and played a couple of nights with the New South, which was the last configuration of the New South that I was in,” Rice told writer Barry R. Willis. “And then, from there on, we befriended each other and we started talking on the phone occasionally, just to shoot the breeze more or less. And it was sometime in the summer of that year that we started talking seriously about collaboration on something — be it a group project, or a recording, or whatever.”

    But before Rice left to join the David Grisman Quintet in late 1975, he played one more gig with Crowe. “Tony had already been with me about four years almost and I knew he was getting tired, I could tell it,” says Crowe. “And he had already told me about making a move and I said, ‘I hate to lose you, but you got to do what you want to do. I appreciate you even mentioning it. I can’t blame you. I hate it, but I understand.’ The last show we did was in Japan, 1975, and I tell you this, the last song we sung when we walked off the stage, he had tears in his eyes. He couldn’t hardly talk to me. We were not only pickers together, we were friends. Losing Tony was like losing a brother.”

    “I’m a bluegrass musician forever in my heart, But I want to explore and unearth some other things along the way. When I think that piano, drums and soprano saxophone are appropriate, I add them. I really wanted to get out of restricting myself to one format. But I am very much a guitar player, but the challenge of the music lies elsewhere now.”

    A failed relationship in California pointed him back to the east, where he reformed the Tony Rice Unit with an eye on returning his vocals to the fore. After a series of jazz-influenced instrumental albums, he dusted off his folk-influenced vocals for the solo albums Church Street Blues in 1983 and 1984’s Cold on the Shoulder, the latter featuring instrumentalists Béla Fleck, Vassar Clements, and Jerry Douglas. The larger bluegrass audience had grown accustomed to progressive bluegrass thanks to bands like New Grass Revival and even the experimentation of J.D. Crowe, so it wasn’t hard to sell the experimental elements that had become part of Rice’s sound to bluegrass fans.

    “It was fresh,” says Gaudreau, who joined the Unit in the 1980s. “It was, ‘Tony Rice is back and he’s singing.’ That was the battle cry going around the bluegrass circuit. ‘And he’s got a group that will absolutely send you over the top.’ We toughed it out for a while, but once the word got around everybody wanted it. Tony was like singing with a vocal machine. He was just spot on, always on pitch, never threw you any curves. It was always fastballs.”

    Becoming the teacher that Crowe and Grisman had been to him, Rice allowed sidemen to prosper. “Without a doubt, it was the most educational experience that I’ve had in music,” says Gaudreau. “As far as getting to know my instrument better, becoming a more proficient player and developing an appreciation for where music can go — he showed me the way. He showed me that there are ways to play music that are based in tradition but that you can put your own stamp on. Everything Tony Rice played and sang he signed his name to.”

    As if to remind the audience of his bluegrass soul, Rice assembled Crowe, tenor singer Doyle Lawson, fiddler Bobby Hicks, and bassist Todd Phillips in 1981 to make The Bluegrass Album for Rounder. “We got halfway through the first album,” says Crowe, “and we were listening to playback and me and Tony were standing side by side and he looked at me and said, ‘Crowe. This is too good. We can’t let this go at one album. We need to do more than one.'” Indeed, that group, which became known as the Bluegrass Album Band, recorded five additional albums, comprising the last great chapter in Rice’s recording career.

    “But by the fourth album we did, I could tell Tony’s voice wasn’t as good as it had been,” continues Crowe. “That’s when I noticed his vocals going down slightly. He was straining to do things that he didn’t used to strain to do.” In simple terms, years of over-singing and tobacco and alcohol consumption had damaged his throat. Doctors called it “dysphonia” and by the mid-1990s it had so advanced that the Bluegrass Album Band had to cap its career with an instrumental collection.

    Gaudreau saw Rice’s reckoning with his deteriorating heath at the 1994 Gettysburg Bluegrass Festival where Rice and Ricky Skaggs and other members of the New South performed a reunion concert. “His voice was already giving out,” Gaudreau says. “It was raspy. For a couple of years he had pushed it harder and harder until it couldn’t function anymore. On that particular show, he looked at Ricky and kind of shook his head and when he came off stage. [Fiddler] Rickie Simpkins and I were standing there and he walked by us and said in his raspy, growling voice, with whatever he had left, ‘I ain’t singing anymore.'”

    Occasionally, the Bluegrass Album Band reunited for gigs, the last one in Asheville, North Carolina, in 2013. “It was after he had gotten feeling pretty bad, and he didn’t know if he could make it or not and they booked that show that way,” recalls Crowe. “I had a guy standing by to help us out and do Tony’s part if he couldn’t make it. He did good, but I could tell that it wasn’t like the Tony I knew. We did the show and we did two encores and when we walked off the stage, he looked at me and said, ‘Crowe, I am wore out.’ That’s the words he said. I could tell. I said, ‘Tony you did great. I know you’re tired, but you pulled it off, buddy.’ He kind of grinned. From there he went downhill.”

    Rice continued to call his old teacher in August for his birthday, whistling his greetings for Crowe when it became too difficult to speak. But Rice failed to call this year, so when the phone rang the day after Christmas, he wasn’t surprised to learn that the innovator’s body had finally failed him.

    To this day, Crowe marvels at Rice’s talent, whether he was commanding the microphone, picking out a lead on his Martin D-28, or gracefully laying back while others took a solo. “Tony was probably about my favorite rhythm guitar player. As far as a singer, as far as timing and singing and knowing where to put it, he was the man,” Crowe says. “When he learned it and stayed there, he never forgot it.”
    But Amsterdam was always good for grieving
    And London never fails to leave me blue
    And Paris never was my kinda town
    So I walked around with the Ft. Worth Blues

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  19. #63
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    Default Re: RIP Tony Rice

    "After a series of jazz-influenced instrumental albums, "


    I realise that my experience might be different from many of you, but I actually got into Tony's music through this time. 'Backwaters' was a great album, and it also introduced me to the playing of John Reischman.
    I also really like the Quartet album with Peter Rowan, which must have been one of his last, I think. That was a very good group.
    David A. Gordon

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  21. #64
    Oval holes are cool David Lewis's Avatar
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    Default Re: RIP Tony Rice

    Here’s an article I wrote a couple of years back on tony. One of my favourite player. My dream band - tony, Sam, jd, Edgar, Alison.

    Nfi

    https://www.toppermost.co.uk/tony-rice/
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  23. #65
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    Default Re: RIP Tony Rice

    Sad news. I have seen him so many times. My favorite was Tony Rice Unit at the Turning Point in Piermont NY. The place holds about 50 people and I was sitting at last table available... on elevated platform next to Tony. I thought his guitar would hit me in the head. I Couldn't eat my dinner as it felt everybody was watching me but... wow.

  24. #66
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    Default Re: RIP Tony Rice

    R.I.P., Tony Rice.

    I first saw him at the GAMH in the Fall of '76, in Grisman's band. Sadly, I wasn't too aware of Tony then, more of the Dawg. I did catch the TRU at The Bottom Line in NYC, 1981. Crowd kept yelling "Sing, Tony!" He did not.

    A memorable TRU show was at Arnold Banker's Peaceful Valley bg festival in Shinhopple, NY 1993. He was still singing on stage and his guitar playing was on fire. I shot VHS video.
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Click image for larger version. 

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  26. #67
    Ursus Mandolinus Fretbear's Avatar
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    Default Re: RIP Tony Rice

    But Amsterdam was always good for grieving
    And London never fails to leave me blue
    And Paris never was my kinda town
    So I walked around with the Ft. Worth Blues

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  28. #68
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    Default Re: RIP Tony Rice

    Again from Facebook, Sam Bush wrote this:

    I met Tony when I was 18 and he was 19, within a week we were bandmates in the Bluegrass Alliance. I stumbled upon him picking guitar in a parking lot in Camp Springs, NC. Whether it was innocence or arrogance I asked him to join the band I had only been in for a month. Didn’t understand (then) I maybe shouldn’t have or didn’t have that power, yet Tony was so good he got the job. We grew up a lot playing music together. Tony named my mandolin “Ol Hoss”. He often said his guitar and Hoss were a perfect match, “meant to be played together”. I’ll always cherish my memories, our music and the many happy occasions we had together.
    I miss you brother. Peace to you,
    Sam
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  30. #69
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    Default Re: RIP Tony Rice

    This was posted on FB. It's new to me and one can hear the nascent Tony Rice guitar thing happening. Very cool.


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  34. #71
    Registered User Marcus CA's Avatar
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    Default Re: RIP Tony Rice

    Hoover’s writing has the magnificence of his guitars!
    still trying to turn dreams into memories

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    Default Re: RIP Tony Rice

    Quote Originally Posted by AlanN View Post
    R.I.P., Tony Rice.

    I first saw him at the GAMH in the Fall of '76, in Grisman's band. Sadly, I wasn't too aware of Tony then, more of the Dawg. I did catch the TRU at The Bottom Line in NYC, 1981. Crowd kept yelling "Sing, Tony!" He did not.

    A memorable TRU show was at Arnold Banker's Peaceful Valley bg festival in Shinhopple, NY 1993. He was still singing on stage and his guitar playing was on fire. I shot VHS video.
    Saw TR at the same show as Eric Platt at the Cedar after his voice had blown out. Some idiot in the crowd yelled out "Sing one Tony". He stopped. Walked up to the mic and said. "F'ing right!" in a disgusted raspy voice..dripping with venom. I was seated on right on the way to the "green room". That man was as crisp going off the stage as he was coming on. And the dude smelled nice. I don't know what cologne he used but......damn! Those guys cooked.

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    Default Re: RIP Tony Rice

    Quote Originally Posted by Marcus CA View Post
    Hoover’s writing has the magnificence of his guitars!
    Yes, Wow.

  37. #74
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    Default Re: RIP Tony Rice

    Quote Originally Posted by Perry View Post
    The non-mobile link is here:

    https://www.facebook.com/story.php?s...68233866744215

    ...like Coltrane playing a barn dance...
    I wish I'd written that.

    By the way, that my friends, is love. Not in the romantic sense but in the sense of caring for a friend. Really touching.
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    Default Re: RIP Tony Rice

    Quote Originally Posted by Dagger Gordon View Post
    "After a series of jazz-influenced instrumental albums, "


    I realise that my experience might be different from many of you, but I actually got into Tony's music through this time. 'Backwaters' was a great album, and it also introduced me to the playing of John Reischman.
    I also really like the Quartet album with Peter Rowan, which must have been one of his last, I think. That was a very good group.
    Backwaters is one of my all time favorite albums of any genre.
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