Bluegrass guitarist Tony Rice, who was recognized as one of the best greats of the genre, has died. He was 69 years old and passed away suddenly on December 25, noted his former label Rounder Records.
As a solo performer, collaborator and leader of the Tony Rice Unit, Rice was known for his inimitable flatpicker skills, a complicated, rhythmic, melodic style of playing the guitar. Rice’s distinctive style, heavily influenced by jazz, has been an influence on dozens of artists in the world of bluegrass and beyond, including Jason Isbell and Steve Martin. His signature guitar, a Martin D-28, had belonged to Byrd’s Clarence White.
After growing up in California with a father who played guitar, Rice moved to Kentucky as an adult, where he took a break playing five nights a week with JD Crowe and New South. Rice released his first album under his name, The guitar, in 1973, and later released albums such as 1978 SOUND and the 1980s Mar West with the Tony Rice Unit. Rice co-founded and released several albums with the Bluegrass Album Band, in addition to performing regularly with guitarist Norman Blake and mandolinist David Grisman. In 1993, he worked with Grisman and Jerry Garcia Pizza band, a free collection of folk songs released in 2000.
Rice maintained a flourishing career in the 1970s and 1980s, with albums such as 1979 Manzanita and 1983 Church Street Blues resisting as a landmark works in bluegrass. In 1994, Rice began to suffer from dysphonia, which prevented him from singing for the rest of his life. In 2013, Rice was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the International Bluegrass Music Association, an appearance that included his final performance on public guitar. His last album was in 2011 Hartford Rice and Clements with banjoist John Hartford and fiddler Vassar Clements, a project recorded in 1988.