Conference napalm::guitar

    Tony is my favorite acoustic guitar player. Check out the first and
    second Blake/Rice collaborations with Norman Blake (called Blake/Rice 
    and Blake/Rice 2). I saw him live last year at the Old Vienna Coffehaus
    in Westboro MA and it seemed like the whole Tony Rice Unit wsa just 
    plain tired; everything was very tight but there wasn't a lot of
    energy. However, I also have a PHENOMENAL soundboard tape of the
    same band last year at the Winterhawk festival; tons of energy.
    
    - Dave

    As far as new Rice Unit recordings, Tony seems to have been spending
    most of his time in collaborations like the aforementioned Blake/Rice
    albums and one with his brothers.  The band live mixes it up more now
    than in the past, that is there are a lot of vocal tunes and bluegrass
    as opposed to when I saw him in 1982 and it was all jazz instrumentals.
    
    							Brian

Thanks for the infos. Norman Blake and Tony Rice... sounds 
interesting! Do you know which label produced the Blake/Rice 
albums?

FeliX

    Blake/Rice albums are both on Rounder.  The second one has a guest shot
    form Doc Watson as well.

    To hear more Tony Rice, also check out the David Grismann Quartet.  The
    one I know of most is ACOUSTICITY on uh... maybe Rounder, I can check.
    This is a continuation of Grismann's work with Muleskinner (Opus 57,
    ie: Dawg music) and has Tony Rice playing the guitar.  Tony plays on many 
    of Grismann's albums.
    
    There is a book of Tony Rice transcriptions.  It includes, I think, the
    first three Tony Rice solo/unit albums. 
    
    Ben.

	There's also lots of good Tony Rice stuff on the five Bluegrass
	Band Albums also on rounder.  The Bluegrass Band is an allstar
	band comprised of Rice, Jerry Douglas, Dowyle Lawson and others.
	The latest one (V5) "Sweet Sunny South" came out almost two
	years ago, around the same time as the Rice Brothers album.

	Actually I think the last thing he put out was the last Blake/
	Rice album which was over a year ago.  His last solo record was
	"Native American" which is real good.  I think that was put out
	in 1989 or so.  

	Tony played at Winterhawk again this year and put on a fantastic
	show as usual.  His voice didn't sound quite as worn as it did
	last year, but I sure wish he'd give up smoking...

	Other good Tony Rice recordings can be found with J.D. Crowe and
	the New South (including Ricky Skaggs and a 17 year old Jerry
	Douglas).

	_gary
	

I have got the two David Grisman Quintet albums with Tony, the second one is 
called "Hot Dawg" - the Jazzers Steff Grappelli (violin) and Eddie Gomez 
(Bass) do Django Reinhardt's famous "Minor Swing" with them. I have also got 
the David Grisman Rounder album where Tony appears.

Another album from the early times I've got is "California Autumn" - the 
first one published under Tony's name I think. He plays with J.D Crowe, Jerry 
Douglas, Mike Auldridge and others on this album.

I didn't know that there is a Tony Rice transcription book out... is it in 
the same series as the Clarence White one ? Does anybody know publisher / 
ISBN number?

Thanks,
FeliX.

    re: -1, Tony Rice Transcription Book
    
    No, the Tony Rice book is not in the same series as the Clarence book. 
    The Tony book has that "hand-written" look and came as a CBC binder
    type book.  No pictures, no stories, just the notes and guitar
    transcription.  I will check the book tonight for publisher
    information and post it tomorrow.  Now to write myself a note... 
    
    
    Ben. 

	I was just listening to the newest Mike Auldridge album "Treasures
	Untold" and there are a couple of good tunes with Tony on 'em.
	The old Ernest Tubb song "Walking the Floor Over You" and a Bob
	Wills type tune "Driving Nails In My Coffin".   Great Stuff..

	_gary

    The book Tony Rice Guitar/Tony Rice Tablature has no library number of
    any kind.  The most outstanding features are a copyright notice from
    1984 by Tony Rice, and an ALL RIGHTS RESERVED note.  The INTRODUCTION
    talks about Tony being the "leading acoustic guitar player now living"
    and his impact on both "bluegrass guitar and the new acoustic music
    that started the Dawg era".  It goes on to say that Tony's playing is
    precise and highly syncopated and that transcriptions have been "far
    and few between".
    
    Uh... the book contains "accurate" transcriptions of each of the breaks
    on the albums:
    	- Tony Rice Guitar - Rebel Records SLP 1582
    	- Tony Rice - Rounder 0085
    	- Manzanita - Rounder 0092
    
    Other then that the book recommends getting these records from the
    following places which leads me to believe the book would be
    available from the following places as well:
    
    	- Country Record Sales
    	  Box 191
    	  Floyd, VA 24091
    
    	- Elderly Instruments
    	  P.O. Box 14210
    	  Lansing, MI 48901
    
    Good luck tracking this book down.  If it helps, I got my copy from7
    The Fiddler's Choice music store in Jaffrey, NH.  There phone number is
    (603) 532-8440.
    
    Ben.

Gee... no one's mentioned my top 3 favorite Tony Rice albums... in order of
release:

Tony Rice - Guitar
Manzanita
Cold on the Shoulder

Although I think the 5 Bluegrass Album Band albums are terrific (I switched
from guitar to banjo ;^), they are all done in a traditional bluegrass
format; ie, 99% of the time, the guitar provides rhythm only; very few lead
breaks.  The above 3 releases definitely highlight the guitar, primarily in the
bluegrass genre.

- George

I've got most of the albums that Rice has recorded - and he's on a lot!  In the 
TRU (Tony Rice Unit) vein, my favorite is still:  Manzanita - this is a MUST have
for anyone really interested in the acoustic guitar in bluegrass.  Also, he recorded
this one WITHOUT A BANJO.  Sorry, J.D., no offense.

In the jazz grass (spacegrass) vein, my favorites are: Acoustics and Backwaters, which
represent the beginning and culmination of his jazzgrass exploration period.  Acoustics
was recorded when he first formed the TRU, in about 78, after 3 years with J.D. Crowe,
and David Grisman respectively.  

Rice has two audio and two video series available on Homespun tapes. They take you 
through different styles from fiddle tunes (red haired boy, cattle in the cane,
jerusalem ridge), to spacegrass (Backwaters, Devlin, Swing 51).  I've also got the
previously mentioned transcriptions of three albums - and they are highly recommended.

Tony will be in Lyons, Colorado at the 20th Rocky Mountain Bluegrass Festival - 
THIS WEEKEND - along with Norman Blake and Alison Krause - and closing the show
Sunday night is Rice and Blake.  I'm drooling... slightly.

One other thing... Pick up EmmyLou Harris... there's Tony.   On Bela Flecks DRIVE,
there he is... on Bill Emersons 'Home of the Red Fox'- he's there again, and 
on Eric Thompson 'Flatpicking Guitar' he's playing rhythm (this last one from about
72.)

P.S.  Here's some Ricecake trivia - everyone knows that Tony has Clarance's guitar -
and that he used to carry it around when he was a kid and hanging out with the
White brothers... but who got him his first full time professional gig?

Twas none other than.... (drum roll please)...




	Sam Bush.  That's right friends, Sam hired him to replace
Dan Crary in the Bluegrass Alliance - (of course prior to the formation
of New Grass Revival).  And now you know the 'rest of the story'.  

Re: .-1

"Manzanita" is good! Very good dobro playing by Jerry Douglas as well!

So, if the TRU is the bluegrass band of the 80ies, who is the bluegrass band 
of the 90ies...? Is there a new young guitar genius around ? Talking about 
others who worked with Tony: what is David Grisman doing these days? And Mark 
O'Connor? Haven't seen any D. Grisman record for ages (I remember that I was 
not very impressed by the David Grisman Quintett albums which were released 
after Tony left).  

FeliX.

    Grisman just released an album with Jerry Garcia.  After he lost his
    Warners contract he recorded a couple of straight bluegrass albums as
    well as a jazz album with drummer Hal Blaine.
    
    O'Connor has released some new-age-ish albums for Warner Bros. where he
    overdubbed everything.  More recently he recorded an album with a bunch
    of Nashville session hot shots showcasing some incredible picking all
    the way around.  Of course, he's also the #1 session fiddler in
    Nashville, which eats up some of his time  8^)
    
                                               Brian

I picked up Tony's CD "Me and my guitar" from 1987 and listened to it quite 
often the last two weeks - I really like it. Very "compact" sound by Tony, 
Jerry Douglas, Sam Bush, Vassar Clements, Jimmy Gaudreau and others - and 
really nice versions of songs by Lightfoot and Dylan (!). Now I am looking 
for more... are "Native American" and "Cold on the Shoulder" on Rounder, too?

Thanks,

FeliX.

P.S. Re: .12: How was Tony Rice at the Rocky Mountain Bluegrass Festival ?

    Felix,
    
    I know that Cold on the Shoulder is on Rounder... It's got a red-hot
    version of "John Hardy" - great playing, not just by Tony, but
    incredible mandolin and banjo as well. 
    
    At Rocky Mountain, Tony did his usual angry-at-the-sound-people act.
    Funny how the sound was great for the other acts, but he brings his own
    mics/wireless stuff, cranks it to 11, and then complains about the
    sound.  His voice was the worst I'd ever heard it; sounds like it's
    time to get out the old knife and fix the vocal cords again.

    As far as the band's sound, they didn't have the "compact" or clean
    sound of "Me and My Guitar".  It could have been just the sound
    equipment, but Tony was consistently too loud, and sometimes his
    brother (White Rice) was too loud as well.
    
    Of course, his playing made up for everything... He did two TR Unit
    sets, and one with just him and Norman Blake.  The last was, IMHO, his
    best of the festival.  I'd heard some folks saying that the "new
    generation" of flatpickers (i.e., those higher-faster-louder folks who
    believe that morenotes=moremusic) is kinda leaving Tony behind.  Well,
    he threw in enough freaking incredible licks to put that to rest, and
    still made plenty of music as well.

    Usually, when people discuss a musical genre, no matter how narrow,
    there are always at least two or three people (if not ten) who can
    reasonably be called the best.  However, when you discuss flatpicking,
    it seems there are very few who name anyone but Tony Rice as the best.

    So what if he's a jerk?

    Charlie

Well Charlie, I have to disagree with a couple of your comments.  ;^)

>>    At Rocky Mountain, Tony did his usual angry-at-the-sound-people act.
>>    Funny how the sound was great for the other acts, but he brings his own
>>    mics/wireless stuff, cranks it to 11, and then complains about the
>>    sound.  His voice was the worst I'd ever heard it; sounds like it's
>>    time to get out the old knife and fix the vocal cords again.

Rice bashing seems to be as popular these days as bad banjo jokes.  After the
incident you mentioned Saturday night, all I heard around the campfire was
similar statements, and I'll agree they weren't entirely unfounded, as it's
true that Tony comes off as a jerk sometimes.  It's also true that the sound
manager can really wreck an acoustic band sound.  The cats running the 
sound on stage had last worked for Guns and Roses - or the equivalent - and
had the notion that the monitors should be loud enough to make your ears
bleed.  This causes the feedback problems.  Tony does bring his own mikes,
and that's normal - most guitarists have a high quality mike that they use
to ensure they're going to get a good sound.  Let's get this right though,
he's not cranking anything to 11 - he's acoustic - and doesn't have a 
knob to fiddle.  All he hears is the sound coming out of the monitors,
and he plays lightly.  If you ever get the chance to hear him
acoustically it's not loud at all - very controlled and beautiful tone.
That's the warm sound that he wants out front.

My band played the set just prior to Tony's Sunday afternoon set.  Four
times I asked the sound guy to fix the sound in the stage monitors, 
without success.  This was really frustrating. Everytime I leaned into 
the microphone to take a break the damn monitors would start feeding back 
- so I finally just let the banjo take the break.  Not a good situation - 
and even worse when the band is a lead guitar band, like Rice.  We're not. 
We use the banjo primarily as the lead instrument, so the crowd probably 
didn't even notice.

After the set I was listening to the first couple of tunes that Rice did
and it was painful.  Squeal, roar, and garbage.  Who can compete with that? 
I realized finally that it was the sheer volume of the monitors on stage 
that was causing the problem - had nothing to do with what was out front.  
I told the guy running the mains - and in 20 seconds they had dropped 
the monitor volume and cleaned up the sound.  
Rice smiled, gave a thumbs up to the sound guy, the band smiled and relaxed, 
and I've never seen a better show.  They were red hot.  Peter Warnick came
on stage and played some straight ahead bluegrass - and it was one of the
best shows I've ever had the privilege to see.

BTW, Tony's voice has improved.  It's pretty easy to sit back in the 
audience and throw stones - looks to me like he's trying to hang in there.
I hope he pulls it out, because the recordings that he made when his voice
was strong (from 75-85) were as good as anything ever done.  


>>    As far as the band's sound, they didn't have the "compact" or clean
>>    sound of "Me and My Guitar".  It could have been just the sound
>>    equipment, but Tony was consistently too loud, and sometimes his
>>    brother (White Rice) was too loud as well.

	BTW, they band plays to what they hear coming out of the monitors.
The mix out front is completely seperate - and so they could be mixing it
perfectly on stage and still have it screwed up out front.  That's why
Hot Rize paid Frank to travel with them, and is why they always sounded
perfect out front.  It seems to me that a lot of these acts, including
Rice, Alison Krause, and Seldom Scene should get that message. Maybe they
think the margin on their shows is too slim to afford it.

>The mix out front is completely seperate - and so they could be mixing it
>perfectly on stage and still have it screwed up out front.  That's why
>Hot Rize paid Frank to travel with them, and is why they always sounded
>perfect out front.  
    
    I'll agree with the first statement, but the last two times I saw Hot
    Rize, they sounded *awful* relative to the other acts on the festival
    bill.  Their sound man had them too loud in the mains and they were
    pretty distorted.  I was surprised, they would have been better off
    letting the sound crew do their sound.
    
    Actually, where they really need their own sound guy is on the
    *monitor* board, not the main board.
    
    My $0.02.
    
    					Marshall Stax
    

>    The cats running the  sound on stage had last worked for Guns and Roses
    
    Maybe that's the problem.  GnR haven't been happy with their monitor
    mix this tour either...

I haven't been following Tony's work for several years.  Did I miss something
about his voice?  Has he had a problem?  

Bob

    
    <<Well Charlie, I have to disagree with a couple of your comments.  ;^)

    Gee, Mike, for a minute, I was wondering if you were going to speak
    up... %-)
    
    Charlie

>I haven't been following Tony's work for several years.  Did I miss something
>about his voice?  Has he had a problem?  
    
    I don't know the particulars, but I've heard Tony has had throat
    trouble due to heavy smoking and his voice certainly doesn't have the
    high range it used to have.  One story I heard was the real reason for
    that period in the early eighties where he was doing all instruemtnals
    was his doctor told him to stop singing for awhile.
    
    						Brian

I've had a lot of problems with sound people also. Nothing more fun than
having the montors shut off in the middle of a song or pulling all of the 
bass out of my MIDI mix. When I was at the state fair (Colorado) this
summer, I got a chance to talk to Lou Diamond Phillips (of the movie
LaBamba fame - he was touring with his oldies band), and I asked how
the sound was (he had just finished his sound check - he couldn't get the
drums miked right; I could hear that there was no Kick (Bass) drum), and
he had some choice things to say about the people working the sound. I
totally agree with him. I prefer to bring my own sound person, or run it
myself.

							Jens

Listened a lot to Tony's albums recently - especially the relatively new "Me 
and my guitar" and "Native American". I really like his more folky (less 
trad. bluegrassy) style with sax and piano - goes very well with Tony's 
guitar... and I anyway like Jerry Douglas' outstanding dobro work.

A great selection of songs, and IMHO: Tony's voice may go down, but somehow 
I like his singing better than ever... 

I wonder if he is doing a new album soon - I can't wait... anybody heard any 
rumours?

FeliX.

I noticed that Tony Rice made at least one album with David Grisman.  I have
liked what I have heard of David Grisman and would like to sample some Tony
Rice.  Are there any Rice/Grisman albums that you could recommend?

Jim

Re: .-1

Tony Rice worked with the David Grisman Quintett for a couple of years and I 
can highly recommend the albums "The David Grisman Quintett" and "Hot Dawg" 
- both of them are classic examples of their "new acoustic" jazz music. 

If you look for more bluegrass style albums there is "The David Grisman 
Rounder Album" where Tony sings and plays guitar. Another excellent 
bluegrass album where both Tony and David appear is banjoist Bill Keith's 
"Something Auld...Something Bluegrass".

These albums are all from the late 1970ies I think. I wonder myself if there 
are some more recent examples of a Rice/Grisman cooperation... 

FeliX.