Tony Rice's Best Loved Albums

In this bonus episode we're celebrating Tony Rice's best loved albums....as voted for by you!

I put out a poll over my social channels as well as some popular Facebook groups and subreddits and collated all the responses.

The rules were simple - just pick one album each for these 3 categories:

1. Tony Rice/Tony Rice Unit album

2. Album where Tony’s named as one of the artists (e.g. Blake & Rice/ Skaggs & Rice/Tone Poems)

3. Any album Tony plays on but isn’t named as an artist (e.g. DGQ, Bluegrass Album Band, JD’s 0044….or anything else)

I had over 400 votes in total. In this short episode I reveal what won in each category, what the most popular album was overall and also what pickers like Chris Thile and Trey Hensley chose as their favourites!

Check out the full list 

You'll find links to previous podcast episodes celebrating Tony Rice on bluegrassjamalong.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Hi, this is Matt, and you listen to Bluegrass Channel on the podcast for anyone and everyone who loves Bluegrass. Hello everybody, welcome back to Bluegrass Jamalong. This is a kind of special extra episode. It's not an interview, it's not a briefing, it's just a bit of a round up of a project I've been working on, and it's on one of the podcast's favourite topics, which is Tony Rice. What I did, and you may have seen this on my social channels, but I put out uh a question across my social channels, a couple of Facebook groups and Reddit groups, kind of bluegrass, bluegrass guitar related, and asked what people's favourite Tony Rice albums are. Um because I'm fascinated, I have my favourites, and I know what people talk about, and I hear the kind of chat and stuff, but I was just curious what we would find out by doing this. Um and I gave a couple of little rules just to make things interesting. I picked three categories. First was like a Tony Rice or Tony Rice unit album, and that's like Tony is the artist, or Tony and his band are the artist. Nice and clear. Category two, an album where Tony's named as one of the artists, uh, but it's not like just him. So Blake and Rice, Skags and Rice, things like tone poems fall under that. Um, and then the third was just any album Tony's played on, but he's not named as an artist. So that could be Chris McQuintet, it could be the Bluegrass album band, it could be JD Crow and the New South or anything else. Um, and sort of the reason for doing that was just to see if it surfaced some interesting stuff rather than it just being a list of Tony albums. I just wanted to find out what people's favourite Tony Rice performances are, projects he's worked on, all that kind of stuff. And it was just meant as a bit of fun. I had over 400 votes um for it, including some from people who you will know very well, um, including Chris Thhieley, uh Trey Hensley, and I posted a quick social post, the kind of two-minute roundup of the results. But I thought it'd be fun to talk through them because they are it's just really interesting, and I think everybody's got their favourites and reasons why. And I thought people might be keen to understand kind of a bit more of the detail. So I'm gonna chat through them for you. It's not gonna be a super long episode because me listing Tony Rice albums is gonna be boring, but I'm gonna go through each category and just give you a sense of kind of what came where. And we're gonna start with the Tony slash Tony Rice unit albums, and there was a clear winner that had double the votes of anything else on the list. Um, and I thought it might be between Church Street Blues and Manzanita, and by far and away it was Manzanita, that was the one that won. Um people love it, and I know that that's a you know a really popular record, and maybe I'm slightly my head is slightly full of Church Street Blues because of all the stuff that we did for the 40th anniversary in 2023. Um if you haven't checked that out, go and have a listen. That was that was cool. Um, but yeah, Manzanita. Obviously, it's a great record, we all know that. Um, it is widely, widely loved. Um, and I did a kind of deep dive into this with Alex Graf a few weeks ago before I knew the results of this, so that's really interesting. But um, Alex is a really cool flat picker, uh, really cool guy, really interesting kind of analyst at this kind of stuff. He teaches guitar, so he thinks a lot about kind of stylistic stuff and how people do what they do, and but also just loves that record, and we had a really interesting chat about it. So I'll stick a link in the show notes if you want to find out a bit more about Manzanita and kind of Alex's journey with it. But that was the winner. Um, second, and I was surprised by this, and maybe you won't be. Um Cold on the Shoulder was the second, just ahead of what came in third place. Uh, but with less than half the votes the Manzanita got. Uh, but yeah, Cold on the Shoulder, and I know that's a record a lot of people love. When I spoke to Alison Krause for the Church Street Blues 40th anniversary stuff, she mentioned Cold on the Shoulder is a record she loved and listened to over and over again. Um so yeah, first Manzanita, second's Cold on the Shoulder, third was Church Street Blues. Um, and yes, there are there's something like five hours of conversations I had about that record. Um, with Wyatt Rice, Alison Krause, Mike Marshall, Brian Sutton, Chris Eldridge, loads of people. Um, if you haven't heard those, they are a lot of fun. Um so I'll stick links in the show notes to those. So you got top three were Manzanita, Cold on the Shoulder, and Church Street Blues. Not that far behind Church Street Blues was plays and sings Bluegrass, which I absolutely love. Um, and then fifth was Native American, followed by Tony Rice sings Gordon Lightfoot, which was interesting. Um, I thought me and my guitar might be up there a bit more, but a lot of people love those Gordon Lightfoot songs of Tony's. Um, and then following that, I'm going to put a complete list of this up on the website. There'll be a link in the show notes where you can go and read kind of a page of everything uh if you want to take a bit more time going through it. But yeah, after Native American was the Golden Lightfoot record, then Backwaters, Me and My Guitar, and then other albums that got some votes were Acoustics, California, Autumn, Guitar, Unit of Measure, which I love. Um, Still Inside, which I don't know as well. Um, it's not on the streamers, uh, it's I need to find a copy of that somewhere. Um, Tony Rice, then Mar West and Devlin. Marl West again, I don't know that well. And Devlin is basically, I think, a compilation of Marl West and Still Inside. Um, but yeah, that's the Tony category. First three, Cold on the Shoulder, Church Street Blues and Plays and Sings Bluegrass. Yeah, what do you think? I mean, you know, get in touch and tell me, or come and find me on the social channels and kind of get involved. Such an interesting I mean, they're all good records, right? They're all great. Um, yeah, there you go. That's the Tony category. Let's move on to the category with Tony as a named artist, but not kind of his record. Um, and this the one I thought was gonna win, did win. And again, with twice as many votes as what came in second place. And by far and away your favourite in this category was Skags and Rice. What a wonderful album. Um I love it. It's really short. Uh there's like a bunch of very short songs, but they are just perfect. Um yeah, the singing, the playing, the choice of songs, just the the sound itself, it's just an incredible record. Um in second place, Blake and Rice, the first one. Um again, a really loved tracker, I love that one as well. Uh, duo, those duo things that Tony does are glorious because you can really hear what Tony does, um, and I really enjoy that. For the same reason that I really like Church Street Blues, um, it can get a bit masked in a band sound, uh, and I love hearing the detail of what Tony plays. So Skags and Rice and Blake and Rice both have that in in bucket loads. Um, third place was pizza tapes, um, followed by Tone Poems, followed by Blake and Rice 2. Um, and then Peter Rowan and Tony Rice Quartet was in there, um, Dog and T was in there, River Sweet with John Carlini, um, Heartford Rice and Clements, and Rice Hillman and Peterson were all in there as well. But your top three of that category was Skags and Rice, Blake and Rice, and Pizza Tapes. Um also be really interesting to know if the stuff that's not on these lists is an absolute favourite album of somebody's. Um yeah, there's stuff missing, and some of that's got to be somebody's favourite album. But the final category, which is the Tony played on it, but he's not kind of listed as the artist. Um, again, there were two things here I thought might come out top, and this one was much closer. There's only a few votes in it across the top uh three or four here. Um and the winner was JD Crow the New South, Roundadoro 44. Um classic, classic record. I love that. I did a deep dive on that one with Tim Stafford. Um, again, link in the show notes to that because that was such a cool chat. Tim knows so much about this stuff, and obviously Tim co-wrote Tony's biography um still inside. He's got a wealth of knowledge, but just passion as well. Tim is a huge fan of that record, and it comes through in the conversation. Um, so yeah, round 004, top of the category. Second, first David Grisman Quintet record. Again, done some deep dives on that with uh with David himself, with Mike Marshall, Todd Phillips, Darrell Anger, a lot of content about that one. Um, links in the show notes to that. Third, one vote behind the first Grisman Quintet record was Baylor Flex Drive, um, which I absolutely love as well. And there's an episode of the podcast about that one with Chris Eldridge as well. Um, yeah, so Rounder 0044, Grisman Quintet, first record, and drive, all absolute classics. And this is an interesting category because what are you judging on? Is it how much you like the record? Is it like Tony's contribution to that record? We're all, you know, coming at it from slightly different places. Um, Bluegrass Album Band, 4th, was uh fourth place, Bluegrass Album Band Volume 1, but 2 and 3 were in there as well, and if you add them all together, they basically if you add all the bluegrass album band stuff together, it would have as much of a share of the vote as um of the JD Crow record. Um but after the first Bluegrass album band, then it's Baylor's Bluegrass Sessions, um, Tales from the Acoustic Panic Volume 2, um, then Bluegrass Album Band 2 and 3, then Hot Dog, the Grisman album, Rice Brothers, um, and then some interesting stuff comes in the Grisman Quintet Live, the Great Mus American Music Hall, Kate Wolfe's Closer, um Tony's contribution to Tony Trishka's Banjo Land, Don Reno Family and Friends, uh Larry Rice's Hurricanes and Daydreams, Emily Lew Harris's Roses in the Snow, which I absolutely love, and Todd Phillips album released. So yeah, but your top three there were uh Rounder 004, uh Chris McQuintet first record, and Baylor's Drive. And if you slap them all back in one big category, the five albums that got the most votes were Manzanita, followed by Skags and Rice, with one vote separating them. And then both of those have twice as many as the next three. Um, but the three was Blake and Rice, four was Cold on the Shoulder, and five was Church Street Blues. Um yeah, I'm aware this episode is me listing Tony Rice albums, but I just think it's really interesting to see what people have enjoyed. As I said, there's going to be a kind of a post on the website about this that lists everything in the categories, and altogether you can go and have a look. Um please do that, I'll stick a link in the show notes. Um, but the other thing with this one is I had some people comment on some of these posts who are incredible musicians, people involved in the acoustic music world. So I thought I'd share what they said with you as well. The first was Chris Theley, um, who said it's torture but also fun slash interesting to have to pick. Um and his choices were mine, and mine do change on any given day, like I'm sure everybody else's do. But his choices were Church Street Blues, Skags and Rice, and Drive. I mean classics, all of them. Um also got a comment from Trey Hensley along a very similar vein, saying not fair to have to choose, but um come in from a totally different place. Native American, pizza tapes, and bluegrass album band three. Totally different list. Um Dave Cinco, audio engineer, has worked with Punch Brothers a load, but also with Edgar Meyer and with Baylor and with all those people. Um, similar to Chris, he chose Church Street Blues, Skags and Rice, and the David Grisman Quintet first record, which I have an episode where me and Dave Cinco chat about that record. Um so I'll stick a link in the notes to that as well, and there's gonna be a lot of links in the notes, but it's good stuff. John Stickley um picked Cold on the Shoulder, Blake and Rice and the first Grisman Quintet, Ethan Sherman, um Me and My Guitar, Blake and Rice, and Baylor's Bluegrass Sessions. Um Michael Daves just kind of called out Manzanita, just it said that album is a classic just for the kickoffs, if nothing else, but the interplay with the band, and you know, is just really wanted to shout out for Manzanita. Um, as I say, there's going to be a page with all of this on that I will send you to, there'll be a link. Um, the way this all works is that once the episode goes live on the podcast platforms, it creates a page on the website and then you need to go and edit it. So if you are super super speedy and you uh download this episode within the first few minutes of it being live, A, well done. Um, but B, the stuff might not be there. So if it's not there, just check back in an hour or so and I'll get it all updated. Um just wanted to give a shout out to Kraft Recordings, who've done some great work in recent times bringing out reissues of Tony's stuff. They did a remastered Church Street Blues on vinyl, and also it's a digital download. Um they last year did Backwaters and they're about to bring out uh a remastered version of Tony Rice on vinyl as well. Um, there is also Manzanita is out there, brought out by another label, um, but that is still knocking around if you're looking for Manzanita on vinyl. Um but yeah, it's so craft recordings, you know, check out their their stuff because they're doing a great job of putting some of this Tony stuff back out on vinyl. It is very expensive to find decent quality copies of Tony's most popular records on vinyl. So they're doing a great job. Um and when I spoke to Chris Eldridge for the podcast, when I we chatted about Baylor's drive record, and he we we had an interesting conversation about vinyl, and his take was definitely that if music was recorded and intended to be released on vinyl, so basically stuff put out in the 70s and 80s, it sounds better on vinyl. Um but if stuff was recorded and intended to be listened to digitally, so kind of I guess you know, mid-90s on, um he thinks it sounds better digitally, and he includes all the music he's recorded in that. Um he doesn't think it sounds any better on vinyl, but he's particularly with some of the Tony stuff that was transferred to CD fairly carelessly by the sound of it. Um Tony wasn't that happy with some of the the mastering of that. Uh he thinks it does sound better on vinyl, and thanks to some of these reissues, you get a chance to listen. You don't need to spend a hundred dollars on a copy to to kind of find out. So I just wanted to put a shout out for that. Um that is it. Slightly unusual episode, but hopefully a fun one. Um go and have a look at the page, see what you think, and check out some of the stuff I've done about Tony in the other episodes. That is it. Have a fabulous week. I'll see you next week with a regular interview. Um that's it. Have a great weekend and happy picking.