RIP Tony Rice

He's getting a lot of appreciation on Twitter. I have listened to his records with David Grisman for a long time ("Tone Poems" is one). Many say he is the King of flat-picked flattop guitar, and changed bluegrass forever. He lost his voice in the 90s and in the last decade or more has arthritis and hand problems, but soldiered on playing as much as he could.

This is an excellent show. As jazzy as it is bluegrass in some tracks.

https://youtu.be/UYqhU_4d5WA

Blue Railroad Train  https://youtu.be/yhI-4Agmax4

NY Times profile from 2014 ... excellent.
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/16/magazine/tony-rice-guitar-hero.html

He is a legend. So sad.  He was too young.

Great article @patrickdowns, thanks. The bassist mentioned in it (Todd Phillips) is an old friend of mine from San Jose. He was leaving a band I was just joining in '71, to focus on studying mandolin with David Grisman up in Marin County. David encouraged him to instead learn upright bass (Todd was playing a Fender P-bass at that time), as there were a lot of good mandolin players around, not so many good upright players. Todd took his advice, and ended up in David's band, as well as working with Tony on a number of his albums (Todd also made a couple of albums as band leader). Nice work if you can get it---all it takes is talent ;-) .