Tony Rice, a musician and songwriter renowned for his elegant style of flatpicking, was inducted into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 2013
Tony Rice, an influential bluegrass guitarist and singer known for his flatpicking, died at his home in Reidsville, North Carolina on Friday. He was 69 years old. Rice’s death confirmed by the International Bluegrass Music Association, which inducted him into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 2013.
Neither David Anthony Rice in Virginia on June 8, 1951, Rice discovered bluegrass thanks to her father, an amateur musician who raised his family in Los Angeles. But also thanks to Larry Rice, his older brother, who played the mandolin. At 20, Tony joined his brother and sister in the New South, the bluegrass group led by the banjoist JD Crowe. The group performed throughout Kentucky and featured Rice at Ricky Skaggs, who joined the New South in 1974. Before his death, Skaggs said Rice was “The most influential acoustic guitarist of the past 50 years. “
Praise
Rice was a force of nature. He dazzled bluegrass fans with his flatpicking and mastery of the Martin D-28 acoustic guitar. His first solo album of 1973 was called, quite simply, Guitar and featured his renditions of “Nine Pound Hammer” by Merle Travis, de « Faded Love » de Bob Wills and one of his signatures, « Freeborn Man ». The fact that Rice sings as well as he performs makes him an even more central figure in the genre.
“Even though Tony Rice had never performed, his voice alone was a singular strength, the songs he sang elevated the level of songwriting in bluegrass and even beyond,” wrote Charlie Worsham, a sidekick of Rice, on Twitter.
yet even if Tony Rice had never played a lick, his voice alone was a singular force, & the songs he sang upped the game for songwriting in bluegrass & beyond.
if you aren’t familiar with Tony Rice, please listen to his music.
— Charlie Worsham (@charlieworsham) December 27, 2020
Spacegrass
In addition to her solo albums, Rice has performed and recorded with the David Grisman Quintet, with JD Crowe and the Bluegrass Album Band, with Norman Blake, but also with his brothers and sisters, the Rice Brothers, with Chris Hillman of the Byrds, with Peter Rowan and his New South friend Skaggs (they released the collaborative LP Skaggs & Rice in 1980.) But it is with his own group, the Tony Rice Unit, that Rice has produced some of his most acclaimed and inventive works.
L’album Manzanita, released in 1979, is a sacred text in bluegrass, with guests like Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Skaggs and Grisman. In the 1980s, Rice mixed bluegrass with elements of jazz and folk to create a style he called “spacegrass.” In 1983, he won a Grammy Award for Best Country Instrumental Performance for “Fireball,” and was a six-time IBMA Award Winner for Best Guitarist of the Year, the last title being won in 2007.
“It is our duty to allow bluegrass music… to grow and flourish. “
Duty
In the 1990s, Rice was diagnosed with dysphonia (a condition of the vocal cords). He also suffered from arthritis and elbow problems which affected his playing. He gave his last public performance on guitar when he entered the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 2013 and delivered a touching acceptance speech. “It is our duty, not only as musicians but also as participants in this form of music, that it be like any other form of music in history., did he declare. It is our duty to allow bluegrass music… to grow and flourish, while retaining the most important part: it is the essence of the sound of true bluegrass music. “
Rice’s death on Christmas morning resonated throughout the bluegrass world as well as the guitar community in general. “The list of guitarists who have reinvented the most played instrument in the world is very short. Eddie Van Halen, Jimi Hendrix… a few others. Tony Rice is on this list, Charlie Worsham told Rolling Stone. Hang out with a few guitarists long enough, and you’ll hear phrases like “Manzanita” or “Cold on the Shoulder,” which fit into the conversation like a code, like a test to see how much you know about the right things. Anyone who strives to pick up a guitar (…) with the grace and precision of a hummingbird’s wings owes Tony Rice a debt of gratitude. “
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