One of my main #music interests is #bluegrass, especially the newgrass/progressive bluegrass movement that started in the 1970s. My favorite bluegrass artist is the late Tony Rice, who is widely regarded as one of the greatest acoustic guitarists of all time and was also a wonderful singer and bandleader. My love for Tony was cemented when I witnessed this allstar performance at the 1992 Merlefest. More Tony Rice/bluegrass content to follow in the thread.
Tony was one of the central figures in the newgrass/progressive bluegrass scene, which blended modern repertoire and outside techniques including jazz with the trad form of the music. The other musicians in these Merlefest vids - Bela Fleck, Sam Bush, Mark O'Connor, Jerry Douglas and Mark Schatz are also huge newgrass figures. This video captures them blazing through Bela's signature tune Whitewater at the height of their collective power, making virtuosity fun again!
In 1975 Tony burst onto the scene as part of JD Crowe and the New South, along with Jerry Douglas and Ricky Skaggs (a fantastic bluegrass mandolinist long before he became a lame maga country clown). Their self-titled album on Rounder is one of the centerpieces of any bluegrass collection.
As soon as the New South got huge, Tony left the band to join the first lineup of the David Grisman Quintet. Once again, their self titled debut is a definitive, must-own album for acoustic music fans. Dawg music was born - a hybrid of #jazz, swing and bluegrass that broke into entirely fresh territory and was played at the highest possible level of musicianship.
After a few years with Dawg, Tony went out on his own. The early years and albums of the Tony Rice Unit were largely in the "spacegrass" jazz hybrid style, Tony's personal evolution from the Dawg music concept. Here is his sublime take on the John #Coltrane arrangement of My Favorite Things. There's never been another acoustic player like this!
Sadly, in the mid 90s he started having health problems which robbed him of his voice. His latter era work, through the early 2000s, is largely in duet and sideman settings with his vocalist friends and peers. In the late 90s his harmonic vocabulary expanded even further, with results like this jazzy, abstract masterpiece take on Shenandoah. This audio-only recording has truly remarkable sonic quality; it is perhaps the finest capture of his legendary tone we have.
I decided to do this long historical Tony Rice #bluegrass thread (most of which you have to click to see, btw, as it will not appear in your feed) as a way of resetting my own posting style to fit with the more thoughtful mode in evidence here & invite discussion. I will close with a link to my Tony Rice live show #FLAC archive on Google Drive, which contains dozens of legal high quality soundboard recordings. There is an About text file included, with recommendations.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1GxOds0DpFDKtiQWFSqteioB1Co8z1-jm?usp=share_link
@creckling @MrCompletely Also on my list is John Fahey’s book How Bluegrass Music Destroyed My Life.
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