Album Review: Tony Rice (Remastered 2026) – Craft Recordings

Reviewed by Harry Kaplan

Where has this album been all my life? How did I miss this one? I guess my love of bluegrass didn’t fully develop until later in my life. As a youngin’ I was much more moved by loud rock, electric and aggressive music. Shame on me! This is absolutely stunning. Nothing outlandish, nothing experimental. Just absolutely pristine bluegrass adjacent music. I say adjacent because it differs from straight bluegrass in its presentation with more pop sensibilities. But still sublime.

Did I mention that this is a vinyl re-release? I should have if I didn’t already. MP3s have come a long way as far as sound quality but nothing replaces the feel and sound of an album. And yes a little warble and a crackle here and there adds to the nostalgia and charm. And in this case after almost 50 years since its release, this is the ONLY way to listen to this album. And that is a hard rule. No exceptions. Okay maybe a few exceptions but this is still the preferred delivery method.

Tony Rice is the name on the album, but this is not a one-man operation. This is a murderer’s row of acoustic musicians. Rice handles guitar and vocals, but he is joined by Darol Anger and Richard Greene on fiddle, J.D. Crowe on banjo and vocals, David Grisman and Larry Rice on mandolin, Jerry Douglas on dobro, and Todd Phillips on bass. That is not a backing band. That is a summit meeting. Crowe brings the hard bluegrass authority, Grisman brings the progressive acoustic imagination, Douglas brings that liquid dobro voice, Anger and Greene add the fiddle fire, Larry Rice thickens the mandolin attack, and Phillips keeps the whole thing standing upright. This is what makes the album feel so complete. It is not Tony Rice showing off. It is Tony Rice standing in the middle of a room full of killers and still sounding like the gravitational force.

I don’t care for snakes but I will make an exception for Rattlesnake, the all instrumental track that features Grisman showing the way for what will become “jam grass”. I can hear that improvisation and those jazzy interplays between musicians. Yes, this is fiddle, acoustic guitar, upright bass, and mandolin, but it could easily be a trumpet, piano, saxophone and a drum kit. The principles are still the same. It’s musical competition and gamesmanship in its purest form. Not to outdo one another but to challenge each other and move the narrative forward a couple of bars.

I have a tendency to mention Billy Strings a lot in my reviews of his material and concerts and also in other people’s reviews. I can hear the seed of Billy in the instrumental track Farewell Blues. Honestly, if I didn’t know who this was and I heard it for the first time, I would absolutely have said Billy. Clearly Mr. Strings learned a lot from Mr. Rice. The cadence, timing, and ability to shred is absolutely a perfect match, a direct hit. This album was Billy’s launch pad. This isn’t where Billy will end up, but this is clearly where he started. BMFS has played this song live, which proves the point even more. Unfortunately Tony Rice’s guitar prowess is not as well known. But I am telling you this is pure molten lava.

Tony and company are complete pros. They can synthesize bluegrass into a more modern form, but they can also play the dickens out of a traditional tune as well. One of the reasons this album works so well is that there is balance between the more modern flavors of “grass” and the grounding of going back to the roots. No song on this album illustrates that better than Mr. Engineer. I have said it before, every classic country album needs at least one train song and I am going to extend that to bluegrass as well. These guys’ harmonies are off the chart and the musicianship is tighter than a freighter moving through the Panama Canal.

I now own this album in my private collection and didn’t just review it, I am an avid listener. I have righted the wrong by not knowing about this musical work of art in the past. Without Tony Rice, there is no new grass or jam grass or whatever you want to call it. If Michelangelo is traditional bluegrass then Tony Rice is Raphael and this self-titled masterpiece is the School of Athens.

Listen and buy Tony Rice (Remastered 2026) here