Guitar Hero
When Tony Rice died on Christmas Day in 2020, so many artists and fans in the roots music world lost a hero. As time goes by, mourning turns to appreciation, and that has yielded several tribute albums through which we can celebrate Rice’s music and his legacy of encouraging artists who came after him. Below, get the stories behind tribute albums from Barry Waldrep (who recruited friends like Vince Gill, John Cowan, Jim Lauderdale, and many more), Punch Brothers, and Dan Tyminski. Plus check out a review of a new book about the musicality of Bob Dylan’s songs, a video for ND readers from Anaïs Mitchell, and a look at vinyl collecting from Through the Lens columnist Amos Perrine.
– Assistant Editor Stacy Chandler
By Henry Carrigan Tony Rice was a master of his craft whose guitar licks have been copied by thousands of bluegrass and jazz guitarists. Most of all, Rice encouraged every musician he ever met, taking time to listen to their work and urging them to make their sound their own. His death on Christmas Day in 2020 was devastating to his many fans and musical peers, but his influence lives on, as evidenced by the musical tributes in the works since. |
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By Henry Carrigan, The Reading Room Musicologist Larry Starr takes a bit of a different approach to Dylan’s music in his appealing book, Listening to Bob Dylan. Combining the passion of a fan with the insights of a musicologist, he asks simply: Would we love Dylan’s musiceven if the songs did not have lyrics? He contends that we too often focus on Dylan simply as wordsmith, a lyricist, and fail to listen to the entire performance of the song: the music, the composition of the melody and harmony, the arranging, the roles of certain instruments. |
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