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Post by jwills57 on Dec 27, 2020 3:47:23 GMT
This is Jack, from the States. Haven't seen this mentioned on the forum as of yet, so I'll just write the sad news that Tony Rice died on Christmas day in his home. I was aware that he had been in poor health for the last few years, but Gosh, this is distressing. He was certainly the most influential Blue Grass guitarist of the last 50 years or so and also one of the most fluid, articulate, interesting, and skillful musicians to have ever picked up an acoustic guitar. Just an absolute giant of a player and a man. I will be listening to a Tony Rice album or two tomorrow, so I can pay honor to his extraordinary talent and musical spirit. I don't really play flatpicking guitar, mostly fingerstyle, but just his phrasing and the depth of his playing always gave me something to which to aspire. Best, Jack
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Post by earthbalm on Dec 27, 2020 8:47:50 GMT
Very sad news.
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delb0y
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Post by delb0y on Dec 27, 2020 9:20:33 GMT
Yes, very sad. I have numerous Tony Rice albums from across his varied and illustrious career, several books, and several DVDs. The man was immense and one of the most influential musicians of all time. RIP Tony.
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Post by martinrowe on Dec 27, 2020 10:05:21 GMT
Yes. I remember a compilation Bluegrass album. One the tracks had a guitar introduction. I remember thinking "Who is that?!!!"
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Post by Deleted on Dec 27, 2020 10:22:54 GMT
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Post by bellyshere on Dec 27, 2020 17:00:20 GMT
Sad news. Great player and equally great voice.
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Post by ocarolan on Dec 27, 2020 18:17:10 GMT
A sad loss of an amazing player.
Keith
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Post by andyhowell on Dec 29, 2020 10:51:46 GMT
It was his use of augmented and diminisished chords that made him very different — the jazz influences that everyone seems ot talk about. what fasciantes me is how you can hear this influence — not just in bluegrass and country — but in, say, celtic guitar playing. Lots of the great young scottish playes seem to have a Tony Rice feel about their playing.
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Post by jwills57 on Dec 29, 2020 17:16:10 GMT
Hey, Andy--I agree with you 100%. I wrote on another forum that the thing that separates Tony Rice from just about everybody else in that generation of flatpickers is the depth of his playing. It's not just major and minor chords and pentatonic scales; he's working in very subtle diminished chords and augmented chords in a extremely fluid and thoughtful way. You don't see much of that in the flatpicking world, even today. It takes a lot of understanding to get from A to B to C and back again when you're playing that way; it's obvious, at least to me anyway, that he had a great understanding of the fingerboard and how music works.
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Post by walkingdecay on Dec 30, 2020 15:33:09 GMT
I remember my first encounter with Tony's music really well. It was at the Cambridge Folk Festival in 1976, when he appeared as part of a group billed as "David Grisman and Friends." I was looking forward to seeing and hearing Grisman, who I knew mainly from the Grateful Dead's bootleg tape network, seeing him as someone who was somehow reconciling Stephane Grapelli's and Bill Monroe's sounds. Well, Grisman had already moved a lot further on by then, but it was the skinny guitarist who seemed to be playing everything with eyes at least half closed who galvanised my attention.
Tony wasn't just playing Django to Grisman's Stephane: he had a way of navigating the chords that showed familiarity with later and arguably more sophisticated jazzers, had his own spin on blues and bluegrass that went to places my hero Clarence White had been and beyond, all of it combined with solid grounding in the traditional repertoire. Some of Tony breaks were like controlled explosions, spreading out uninterrupted from a suggestion of melody until he'd hit the five with, say, a single note that hung in the air to break the tension, before resolving with a slippery blues lick.
That performance led to long familiarity with Tony's music, which had still more to offer, from lyrical crosspicking which sounded like fingerpicking with a fluidity and crystal delicacy that thumb and fingers couldn't quite achieve to that warm voice, which could have made the country and crossover charts if properly exploited. All seemed for me to culminate in The Pizza Tapes, back with Grisman and with my personal demigod Jerry Garcia, three master musicians exploring their repertoires, with Garcia taking the vocal honours and manifesting the "I'm a thousand years old" feel that arrived in his latter days.
I'll admit that I could never get my pick to move like Tony's, that later on I'd prefer Norman Blake's more robust and timeless styling, but I could still appreciate Tony's work, kept buying the albums until his body betrayed him. The illness robbed the world of his music, his death of a great spirit.
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Post by andyhowell on Jan 1, 2021 10:45:25 GMT
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Post by walkingdecay on Jan 2, 2021 13:49:51 GMT
Yeah. It always seemed an odd approach, both for someone from a bluegrass background and one with an avowed Django influence. Full on chop and roll bluegrass bands can be a challenge to be heard in, while la pompe drew cues from Django's own choice of really loud acoustics. which he then thrashed outright. Maybe Tony decided to rely on the natural volume of dreadnoughts with big soundholes (he had and was inspired by Clarence White's guitar, which was given a big soundhole, whether through accidental damage to its top or design is questionable, for those who don't know) and amplification. Whatever, he was heard, however delicate or complex his rhythm and leads were.
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Post by andyhowell on Jan 3, 2021 11:45:11 GMT
walkingdecay Amplification has had a big impact jsut as it did when helping singers with quiet voices. I'm always fascinated by those who rantabout amplification and who perfer to listen to classical guitars in big halls that are desigend simnply for volume rather than the quality of sound. A midicum of well judged amplification is nearly always prefereable to me as, not least, you can appreciae the technical ability and sensitivity of the player.
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Post by geddarby on Jan 20, 2021 10:12:01 GMT
I think that his comments towards the end of this video probably sum up why most of us play and sing
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