Tony Rice is one of bluegrass' most inventive flatpicking guitar players. Although he's displayed a mastery of the genre's traditions,
Rice set the standard for more contemporary styles. A former member of the Bluegrass Alliance,
the David Grisman Quintet,
J.D. Crowe's New South, and
the Bluegrass Album Band,
Rice has continued to reflect his eclectic approach on solo recordings, two albums with flatpicking guitar ace
Norman Blake, and two albums, recorded with his brothers
Larry,
Ron, and
Wyatt, as
the Rice Brothers. In 1996,
Rice joined with
Chris Hillman,
Herb Pedersen, and his brother
Larry to record a tradition-rooted album,
Out of the Woodwork.
Raised in Southern California,
Rice inherited his musical skill from his father, who played with several West Coast bluegrass bands and was heavily influenced by California-based bluegrass groups, including
the Dillards and
the Kentucky Colonels, which featured influential guitar picker
Clarence White. Moving temporarily to Kentucky in 1970,
Rice became a charter member of the Bluegrass Alliance, one of the earliest contemporary bluegrass groups. As a member of
J.D. Crowe's New South in the early '70s, along with
Ricky Skaggs and
Jerry Douglas, he continued to promote a new approach to the music of the hill country. After meeting imaginative mandolin player
David Grisman during a jam session in 1975,
Rice returned to California and helped to form
the David Grisman Quintet. During the five years that he played with the group,
Rice helped to lay the foundation for the "new grass" style that
Grisman dubbed "Dawg Music." Leaving
the Grisman Quintet,
Rice formed a bluegrass supergroup,
the Bluegrass Album Band, with
J.D. Crowe,
Bobby Hicks,
Doyle Lawson, and
Todd Phillips. Although only a part-time venture, the group produced five memorable albums.
Rice's albums as a soloist and with his band,
the Tony Rice Unit, have ranged from the jazz-tinged Mar West, which included bluegrass-style treatments of tunes by
Miles Davis and
John Coltrane, to singer/songwriter-oriented albums, including
Cold on the Shoulder,
Native American, and
Me & My Guitar, which featured his virtuosic guitar picking and soulful vocalizing of songs by
Ian Tyson,
Phil Ochs, and
Gordon Lightfoot.
Rice released an album-length collection of
Lightfoot's songs,
Sings Gordon Lightfoot, in 1996.
Rice continued to interpret the traditional bluegrass repertoire as well, releasing an album of old chestnuts,
Plays and Sings Bluegrass, the same year. In 1997, with his brother
Larry Rice,
Chris Hillman, and banjoist
Herb Pedersen, he founded
Rice, Rice, Hillman & Pedersen, and the superstar quartet released three albums between 1997 and 2001.
Rice's singing voice had been essentially silenced due to dysphonia since the early '90s, but he remained a top instrumentalist, collaborating with
Peter Rowan on a pair of albums for Rounder Records, 2004's
You Were There for Me and 2007's
Quartet. The encouragingly titled Tony Rice Sings and Plays Bill Monroe appeared in 2011. ~ Craig Harris & Steve Leggett