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1977 Tony Rice Self Titled Bluegrass Guitar Vinyl LP Record
Side One Banks of the Ohio Tony Rice—guitar & vocal lead Larry Rice—mandolin & vocal tenor J. D. Crowe—banjo & vocal baritone Todd Phillips—bass Jerry Douglas—Dobro Richard Greene—violin Rattlesnake Tony Rice—guitar Todd Phillips—bass Darol Anger—violin David Grisman—mandolin Mr. Engineer Tony Rice—guitar & vocal lead Larry Rice—mandolin & vocal tenor J. D. Crowe—banjo and vocal baritone Jerry Douglas—Dobro Richard Greene—violin Todd Phillips—bass Plastic Banana Tony Rice—guitar Richard Greene—violin David Grisman—mandolin Todd Phillips—bass Don’t Give Your Heart to a Rambler Tony Rice—guitar & vocal lead David Grisman—mandolin J. D. Crowe—banjo Todd Phillips—bass Richard Greene—violin Jerry Douglas—Dobro Farewell Blues Tony Rice—guitar Richard Greene—violin J. D Crowe—banjo Larry Rice—mandolin Todd Phillips—bass Jerry Douglas—Dobro Side Two Way Downtown Tony Rice—guitar & lead vocal David Grisman—mandolin & vocal tenor J. D. Crowe—banjo Richard Greene—violin Jerry Douglas—Dobro Todd Phillips—bass Stoney Creek Tony Rice—guitar Larry Rice—mandolin J. D. Crowe—banjo Richard Greene—violin Todd Phillips—bass Jerry Douglas—Dobro Hills of Roane County Tony Rice—guitar & vocal lead David Grisman—mandolin Todd Phillips—bass Richard Greene & Darol Anger—violins J. D. Crowe—banjo Eighth of January Tony Rice—guitar David Grisman—mandolin Darol Anger—violin Todd Phillips—bass Big Mon Tony Rice—guitar Richard Greene & Darol Anger—violins Todd Phillips—bass J. D. Crowe—banjo David Grisman—mandolin Jerry Douglas—Dobro Temperance Reel Tony Rice—guitar David Grisman—mandolin Richard Greene—violin Todd A. (Pop) Phillips—bass 6ZZ5I Tony Rice is an excellent singer and an extraor- y Ml dinary guitar player. In fact, he is quite probably the most important living bluegrass guitarist. Tony was born June 8, 1951 in Danville. Virginia. His father was a North Carolinian who loved bluegrass and played it in his spare time. Before Tony's second birth- day, however, the family had moved out of the bluegrass heartland and had relocated in Los Angeles. Fortu- nately, the Rices' music came along. The first bluegrass music that Tony ever heard was on the family's Flatt and Scruggs 78's. As it happened he was also to have early exposure to live music, via the Golden State Boys—a California bluegrass band which included Tony's father and several of his uncles. Tony was still in elementary school when he learned to accompany himself with chords on the guitar. At age 9 he made his public debut with an appearance on the Town Hall radio show. On the same show was a young bluegrass band that instantly captured Tony's undivided attention. It was called the Country Boys (later known as the Kentucky Colonels). Clarence White, the groups six- teen-year-old guitarist, would soon achieve widespread recognition as an innovator of major significance on his instrument. Although he was not yet playing any of the remarkable lead guitar which would make him famous in bluegrass circles, Tony was instantly struck by Clarence's exceptional rhythm work Around that time Tony began playing bluegrass in a band with his brothers. Larry Rice played mandolin and Ronnie Rice played upright bass. Joined by a young banjo player named Andy Evans, they called them- selves the Haphazards. The group frequently performed on shows which also featured the Colonels and Tony began to get to know Clarence White. Clarence, as it turned out, was glad to share guitar licks with Tony and after a time, a couple of solos in the new lead style he was developing. In 1965 the Rices moved back east: over the next four years they moved repeatedly between Florida. Georgia, Texas, and North Carolina Tony continued to be absorbed by music, but there wasn't much regular per- forming in terms of a band situation. Although he played periodically with his brothers, his father, and other local musicians, he wasn't part of an ongoing group. His musical development thus progressed chiefly through his own inner resources. Although he was playing bluegrass. Tony was listen- ing to other types of music as well He paid particular attention io jazz. Tony lists among his current favorite instrumentalists jazz bassist Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen, pianist Oscar Peterson, and jazz guitarists George Benson, Kenny Burrell, Django Rhemhardt, Phillip Catherine, and Joe Pass. In the summer of 1970 Tony went to Carlton Haney's Reidsville, N.C bluegrass festival with the idea of find- ing some kind of band to play with. His luck could hardly have been better The Bluegrass Alliance, at that time an exciting young group with fresh ideas about bluegrass, was losing its fine guitarist and singer, Dan Crary. The band was impressed by Tony , he was hired on the spot. For the next year Tony performed with the Alliance. Working with Sam Bush, who was also attuned to other types of music than bluegrass, was particularly impor- tant for Tony. After just a year with the Alliance, Tony left to join J. D. Crowe's band, the New South. As things turned out, he would remain with that band exactly four years Larry, Tony's older brother, had been playing mando- lin with J.D. for the past couple of years. The New South’s bassist. Bobby Slone, was also well-known to Tony; Bobby had played bass with the Golden State Boys in California and had toured with the Kentucky Colonels, playing fiddle Nevertheless. Tony's chief rea- son for wanting to join was J. D. himself. "Not only does J.D. have a tremendous amount of musical knowledge." explains Tony, "but he possesses the really important part of musical knowledge, the ability to play perfectly in time, to play with soul, and to hit all the notes really clear and clean." Tony's guitar work, already strong when he started with the Bluegrass Alliance, developed astonishingly during the years with Crowe. His technical mastery increased rapidly to the point where he appeared com- fortable anywhere on the neck of the guitar. He blended conventional flatpicking technique with cross-picking and unusual harmonic intervals taken from jazz His strong musical sense kept his playing inventive, excit- ing, and, above all. totally in touch with the feeling of whatever song he played. Despite the widespread attention paid his unique gui- tar style, Tony's reputation as a singer is similarly excel- lent. Although his vocal work has a somewhat more con- temporary feel than the great traditional bluegrass singers. Tony has a strong affinity for the old songs, and the men he first heard sing them. He mentions particu- larly the early Lester Flatt, the Bill Monroe/Del McCoury duets, Bobby Osborne, and the Osborne Brothers' trios. 'If you took a survey of parking lot pickers, and even professional bluegrass musicians.1' Tony suggests. and if you asked how many have really listened to the old recordings of Bill Monroe and Flatt and Scruggs all playing together—I bet you'd find more of them haven't heard that stuff than have. They ought to just take time and find recordings of that stuff—ignore the sound qual- ity—and just listen to the music " Paradoxically, the depth of his roots in traditional blue- grass made possible Tony's influence within the New South toward a modern sound. While J D., Bobby, and even Larry tended to play bluegrass in a more traditional mode, all were open to trying out new ideas Tony, on the other hand, understood traditional bluegrass well enough to keep any suggestions he made within work- able boundaries. The cross-fertilization of the new and the traditional in the band reached a high point in 1974-75 Larry had left the group and two dynamic young musicians. Ricky Skaggs and Jerry Douglas—each with experience in both new and old bluegrass—joined the band. Within a few months of their arrival the group had recorded a landmark album. The New South (Rounder Records 0044) The record is clearly a highly successful group effort. Nevertheless. Tony's important contributions are evident not only in his singing and guitar work, but also in the material he suggested for inclusion. 'Summer Wages,' "Old Home Place," "Ten Degrees." and "You Are What I Am." In September of 1975 Tony left the New South and returned to California, where he began working with the David Grisman Quintet. JackTottle Tony Rice can be heard on the following Rounder Records: Bill Keith, Something Auld. Something New (Grass)—0084: The David Grisman Rounder Album—0069, Tony Tnschka—0087. and Richard Greene—0075. u.Tony Rice was but a name on an LP jacket and a "3 sometimes-heard guitarist on records over KPFA radio in Berkeley when I first heard him with the David Grisman Quintet. He knocked me out; in fact, the whole band did. But especially Rice His technique seemed impeccable and his tone was not only rich and marvelous—it seemed to float out larger-than-life from his old Martin D-28 guitar. My jazz- onented ears heard bits of Eddie Lang and Lonnie John- son (from late 1920s records) as well as early blues sounds. And the more I listened it became clear that Rice did. indeed, have a more than passing interest in jazz guitar mannerisms; Although his time was solid as a rock he delighted in syncopating the sound by hanging notes occasionally rather than the more usual and formal rag- time-style of syncopating within strict rhythmic patterns. The Grisman band, well represented in the collective personnel on this LP, is a splendid place for an individu- alist such as Rice since no one has yet been able to define exactly what kind of music they play because they play so many kinds. On this LP, Tony Rice has kept loosely within the blue- grass instrumentation and repertoire in forming the various combinations represented, but in style the ensemble is often considerably less tradition-bound than is usually the case. Rice's vocals are consistently strong and mellow and have marvelous accompaniments—I am especially entranced by "Don't Give Your Heart To a Rambler" on which Tony seems to vocally leap into the lyrics and in doing so generates an excitement that the whole band picks up—especially violinist Richard Greene “Banks of the Ohio", kicked off in fine style by Larry Rice on mandolin, has an infectious swing, fine vocal balance (lead and backup) and some splendid Greene violin and J D. Crowe banjo work. Not incidentally, all these tracks were recorded "live", no overdubbing and very little rehashing in general. The Grisman tune "Rattlesnake" includes some great mandolin (by the composer) and violin (Darol Anger) duet-lead strains that are wildly complex; Rice's power- ful guitar is also neatly displayed. Sometimes Grisman sounds like Django Reinhardt playing mandolin. Throughout the LP the steadiness of bassist Todd Phillips is like the rock of ages—an immovable object that swings. Notice on "Mr. Engineer", especially, how much a bass can mean to a band without being a clown, and without dominating. David Nichtern's "Plastic Banana" is a quartet tour de force, with Rice leading the attack followed closely by Grisman and Greene. Tony learned this tune from the repertoire of the Great American Music Band (a group formed by Grisman and Greene, which included Nich- tern in 1974). "Farewell Blues," originally a jazz-pop number and among the first tunes written and recorded by a New Orleans jazz group (New Orleans Rhythm Kings, 1920), came to Tony via Earl Scruggs. The soloists on this cut all deliver great performances. (By the way, the chord- ing in "Farewell's" twelfth bar is played differently by jazz groups and bluegrass bands.) "Way Downtown" is. again, a marvelous vocal vehicle for Rice (with Grisman pitching mon the choruses): He is able to personalize every lyric refrain and provide ele- gant guitar in support; note how J. D. Crowe plays coun- terpoint on the banjo behind the guitar solo. Tunes like "Stoney Creek", with their stop-time fig- ures. key shifts and stomping meter are powerful reminders that these kinds of sounds undoubtedly were played long before anyone coined such terms as "country", "jazz", "western" or other record-company designations. Vernacular music has been disserviced by scholarly and commercial categorization of styles since such labelling has tended to isolate the audiences for each "style” from other styles. Jazz fans would love "Stoney Creek", as performed here, but they are unlikely to even look at (let alone buy) a "bluegrass" recording. "Hills of Roane County", with both fiddlers Greene and Anger, and a marvelous guitar solo, hands on the long ballad-lyrics. The strength in this son of perform- ance. I think, lies in Rice's ability to maintain interest in the lyrics by singing with the same force he uses to pro- ject his guitar—there is a sense of urgency in both that compels listening. The "Eighth of January" is a traditional American fid- dle tune (which, by the way, was also the basis for the pop hit "Battle of New Orleans"). This arrangement was played by the Grisman Quintet (with Phillips on mando- lin) but is recorded here as a quartet, with Rice's clean picking and a mandolin-violin duet by Anger and Grisman. On "Big Mon" the guitar explodes into the grooves, with Grisman, Crowe and Douglas following with break- neck solos (figuratively, of course) and. again. Todd's bassgiving a rousing lift to the whole affair To top it off. Anger and Green sail through two twin-fiddle choruses in the finest Bill Monroe tradition. "Big Mon", as heard here, must be one of the most powerful bluegrass per- formances ever recorded. "Temperance Reel", named and placed on the LP with logic, gets back to the quartet heard on "Plastic Banana" Grisman's mandolin is at its jazzy best, with Greene's G rappeli-like violin. The nicest aspect of making any comments on f ine music, whether m a newspaper or on the back of LPs. is that the writer has a chance to enlighten readers on a performance that he had the privilege of hearing under optimum circumstances. This Tony Rice LP is such fine music: I've heard it many times... I'm enlightening you. Enjoy. Philip Elwood San Francisco Examiner Mr. Elwood is a Berkeley 'San Francisco writer, teacher, and broadcaster m the field of America's lively arts. Photography by Robert Schleifer. Recorded at 1750 Arch Studios. Berkeley. Calif. July 25-30,1976. Produced by Tony Rice. Engineering by Bob Shumaker. Mixing by Tony Rice & Bob Shumaker Mastered at Artisan Sound. Hollywood. Calif. Design by Susan Marsh
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