Ricky Skaggs mourns the loss of the 69-year-old guitar great by hailing him 'the single most influential acoustic guitar player in the last 50 years' in his Facebook tribute.
- Dec 28, 2020
AceShowbiz - Bluegrass legend Tony Rice has died, aged 69.
The guitar great died at his home in Reidsville, North Carolina on Christmas Day (December 25).
Superfan Ricky Skaggs was among the first people to pay tribute to the musician, calling Rice "the single most influential acoustic guitar player in the last 50 years".
"Sometime during Christmas morning while making his coffee, our dear friend and guitar hero Tony Rice passed from this life and made his swift journey to his heavenly home," Skaggs wrote on Facebook.
"Many if not all of the Bluegrass guitar players of today would say that they cut their teeth on Tony Rice's music. He loved hearing the next generation players play his licks. I think that's where he got most of his joy as a player."
A muscle disorder that destroyed his singing voice and tennis elbow, which limited his playing, forced Rice to step away from the spotlight in 2013, when he was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame.
"I am not going to go back out into the public eye until I can be the musician that I was, where I left off or better," Rice told the Greensboro News & Record in 2015. "I have been blessed with a very devout audience all these years, and I am certainly not going to let anybody down."
Rice was a successful solo artist as well as a member of the David Grisman Quintet and The Tony Rice Unit. He also released "Skaggs & Rice" with Ricky Skaggs, and he played with the likes of Jerry Garcia and Dolly Parton. He was awarded a Grammy in 1993 for best country instrumental performance.
Kenny Chesney and Rosanne Cash have also paid tribute to Rice, with Chesney tweeting: "Tony Rice inspired so many including a kid like me from East Tennessee who was in awe of the way he sang and played Me And My Guitar (sic). I'll never forget seeing him sing that at the IBMA Bluegrass Festival in Owensboro, Ky. It's printed in my brain forever! Rest In Peace Tony Rice."
Cash added: "In this a**-kicker of a year, it's a significant loss: Tony Rice, who never played a bad note in his life, left the planet yesterday. Bluegrass music has an enormous vacancy."
There have also been social media tributes from Steve Martin, Jason Isbell, and The Oak Ridge Boys.
