...about Tony Rice
Tony Rice spans the range of acoustic music, from straight-ahead bluegrass to jazz-influenced new acoustic music, to songwriter-oriented folk. He is perhaps the greatest innovator in acoustic flatpicked guitar since Clarence White. Over the course of his career, he has played alongside J.D. Crowe and the New South, David Grisman (during the formation of “Dawg Music”), led his own groups, collaborated with fellow picker Norman Blake and recorded with his brothers. He has recorded with drums, piano, soprano sax, and with straight-ahead bluegrass instrumentation. 

Tony’s solo career hit its stride with Cold on the Shoulder, a collection of bluegrass vocals. With this album, Native American and Me & My Guitar, Rice arrived at a formula that incorporated his disparate influences, combining bluegrass, the songwriting of folk artists like Ian Tyson, Joni Mitchell, Phil Ochs and especially Gordon Lightfoot, with nimble, jazz-inflected guitar work. Simultaneously, he pursued his jazz and experimental “spacegrass” with the Tony Rice Unit on Mar West, Still Inside and Backwaters.  <more on Tony>      -BACK-