That’s when he ended up in J.D Crowe’s The New South.
Ry Cooder and Chris Hillman would also enter his sphere of influence early on.īut Tony Rice’s career as a guitar player started back east when he moved to Louisville, Kentucky in 1970. Early on he would study under The Kentucky Colonels and guys like Clarence White who would go on to play with The Byrds. Born in Danville, Virginia, but growing up in Los Angeles, he became the bridge between two worlds through his flatpicking prowess. Tony Rice was the common denominator in so much of 2nd generation bluegrass that has gone on to define the genre for decades. Crow and The New South is not being hyperbolic, or flattering in his assessment. Many if not all of the Bluegrass guitar players of today would say that they cut their teeth on Tony Rice’s music.” “Tony Rice was the single most influential acoustic guitar player in the last 50 years. “Sometime during Christmas morning while making his coffee, our dear friend and guitar hero Tony Rice passed from this life and made his swift journey to his heavenly home…” close friend Ricky Skaggs said in a statement on Saturday, December 26th.
And now Tony Rice is the latest country music titan to go rest high on that mountain in 2020. He lived a dozen musical lives all inside of one that “legendary” doesn’t seem to do justice to. From the hills and hollers of Kentucky as a strict traditionalist, to some of the most enterprising and innovative interpretations of the bluegrass form, from beside artists as far ranging as Ricky Skaggs and Jerry Garcia, to being the very compass point for a generation of composers and players who all looked up to him and count him as a primary influence, Tony Rice was American string music incarnate.
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