He was 21 years old when he joined Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys band, whose sound coined the term bluegrass music.Their televised Flatt Scruggs Grand Ole Opry show premiered in 1955 and gained a new wave of popularity during the folk music revival, running through 1969.
He received several other awards and honors, including the prestigious National Medal of the Arts and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. ![]() I had been trying to play bluegrass and old-time music on the guitar for about a year, and I idolized Doc Watson, Clarence White, and Norman Blake, but the review talked about Rices ability to match the other bluegrass instruments power in a way that hadnt been done before (or so I remember). So, I ordered the album from Countys mail-order divisionthe only way for a West Coast teenager to get bluegrass records back thenand when it arrived I was stunned, not just by Tonys power and virtuosity on Freeborn Man, Salt Creek, and John Hardy, but by the fat, clear tone and resonance of his guitar on Faded Love. At the time, most of what Tony was doing was way beyond my technical ability, but from that day, Ive been trying to get my guitar to sound like Tonys did on that record. Sometimes I ended up down a rabbit hole of interest, though I wasnt really playing bluegrass at the time, obsessed over his album Manzanita, for example, or the first David Grisman Quintet album or the now legendary JD Crowe and the New South album. But by the time Id found my way back to the bluegrass worldafter a decade playing various kinds of jazz as well as old-time and Irish music on the fiddle, Cajun and country music on the electric guitar, and backing a variety of singer-songwritersTony was king. Everyone, it seemed, played like Tony, or at least they played a somewhat simplified version of his style centered around his signature bluesy hot licks. But the problem with a musical style defined by copycats is that its easy to forget what the original sounded like. Yes, everyone played Tonys hot licks, but nobody played the way he played on Church Street Blues or Faded Love or Blue Railroad Train, unless they were trying to play his solos verbatim. One thing I liked about the flatpicking scene when I first discovered it in the early 70s was that everyone sounded different, but entering a world where everyone (with a few notable exceptions) was just trying to sound like Tony made me underappreciate his playing, and I was determined to avoid his influence. But one close listen to Tonys playing told me that he should not be a model for my rhythm playing. It was too complex, too individual, and well, almost too powerful. Tonys rhythm playing drove the bands he played with; his guitar said this is how it goes, follow me. I, however, being a somewhat inexperienced bluegrass rhythm guitarist, needed to find a way to fit into a band that already had a rhythmic director; my role was to help make all the instruments in the band gel. But that close listen to Tonys playing made me realize how much Id missed, and how much he differed from his copycats. And that made me go back and listen to some of the records Id neglected, especially Church Street Blues and the first duet record he made with Norman Blake, but also some of his singer-songwriter records like Native American and Me and My Guitar. Being festival performances, they featured Tonys driving, flashy side. I dont think I realized how much until he told me one night, after sitting in with Tim OBriens band (which I played guitar with from 1992 to 1997), I envy you. I later realized that losing his ability to sing had effectively made him a sideman. And as he was unable to play the songs he liked to singespecially the folk and pop songs on those singer-songwriter albums by Gordon Lightfoot, Bob Dylan, James Taylor, and other contemporary folk songwritershe was confined to playing instrumentals or backing up guest lead vocalists, who, of course, could choose the songs, the tempos, the grooves. Even when he was playing guitar with JD Crowe and the New South, the David Grisman Quintet, or the Bluegrass Album Band, he functioned as more of a co-leader, and his guitar and voice defined the sound of those bands as much as their official leaders did. In an interview I did with him in the late 90s, he talked about the time after he left David Grismans band: I was with Grisman from the fall of 75 to the fall of 79. We did one tour of the East and occasional gigs in California. In 79 and 80 there was a real bad slump in the music biz and it was hard to find gigs that paid decent money. Its hard to ask guys to come over to your house to rehearse to do an opening act where youre not going to get paid anything.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |