Posted on 12/26/2020 5:44:03 PM PST by ArtDodger
Wikipedia says he died yesterday, but didn't say what happened.
And the world is darker without him.
Bkmk
I don’t know the cause of death but I’m fairly sure it was some malignancy.
He started looking bad five years ago. AIDS? Whatever it was it was something chronic. I think he was a heavy smoker at least early on.
Ping
Same album where I first heard Mr. Rice in 1978. Not sure I’d call it bluegrass, but it’s fantastic music by any name. That album is one of two or three that I own on vinyl, cassette, CD, and MP3. It’s one I play regularly, and I’m going to listen to it again today.
I only saw the David Grisman Quintet live once, in 1979. Tony Rice was amazing, but then they all were. For the show I saw, Darol Anger wasn’t there on fiddle, but they had some old guy named Stephane Grappelli, so that was OK.
Well that must have been a treat! Not that Anger isn’t a great fiddler, but Grappelli adds all that Django nostalgia.
It really was. Although I must confess that back then I had never heard of Grappelli. I had heard of Django Reinhardt, but wasn’t familiar with his music (then).
Have been feeling his passing for the last 2 days— and went to pull out a CD, from thousands in the library— just blindly pull one out, and it was this wonderful Rounder album.
The “sound that went around our song” was Tony— many friends of mine from his family, and we commed once or twice on timepieces. He tinkered and repaired Accutrons.
He was a musician... even more than a guitarist. And few know of the songs he wrote. He sang from the heart— and he developed dysphonia— inability to sing (which is psychosomatic), and eventually his arthritis took away his ability to play guitar. A true troubadour. A loss to me as great as Jerry Reed, more actually. Thank you for your post.
The prophetic song about a lost romance, is more than that—
“Never Meant To Be”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSswjJ3m22g
“
Jerry’s great song— The Likes of Me”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLLnTwlPXOw
Have everything he ever recorded, and a whole catalogue of live performance— been a marathon playback of hours of great music. He was a musician, and a great singer in the genre. As a result he was close to Alison Krauss who mentored him and he her as well. This is sad to lose him, for he still had much to contribute.
Perhaps you’d like this duet with the great jazz guitarist and one of his teachers— the great John Carlini:
“Banister River”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77OJwYqM6YE&list=OLAK5uy_k3srhA-4nVoqwQJUQLKiTX6oDh9rpvdGE
Thanks.
From memory I think he had some neuromuscular degenerative thing that affected his singing voice so he stopped singing. Then he stopped playing because of all things - believe it or not - what was essentially “tennis elbow”. He was such a pro that he said that if he could not play at the level that people expected then he wouldn’t play at all.
There may have been other issues as well - I don’t know - but those two I’m pretty sure about.
In 1978, I think they were calling it "newgrass."
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