Herban Sprawl

It’s the early 1990s. Big Kitty and I are jammed into one end of one of the funky old sofas that line the walls of The Prism Coffeehouse in Charlottesville. Bill Vernon, our pal and the evening’s emcee is jammed into the opposite end. Tony Rice has just begun playing The Tennessee Waltz, one of my favorite old tunes. He glances up, sees us entwined and transported by the music, smiles to himself, and throws in a beautiful run that would bring tears to your eyes. Later, after the show, Bill gets Tony to autograph a Prism poster for me, because I am too shy to invade the green room myself.

Big Kitty just brought home a new release of Tony’s. It’s a compilation of singer-songwriter music that he had recorded long ago. I finally listened to it all the way through and I couldn’t help but recall so many of the things that happened in my life for which Tony Rice provided the soundtrack. I also remember the times when he was my therapist, and a good one, too.

The late Bill Vernon used to say that when he felt good, he wanted to hear bluegrass; when he felt bad, he had to listen to bluegrass.

I had accompanied my father to Peoria for back surgery. We’d had a particularly stormy fight the night before they ran the first tests, and in typical fashion, he was petulant as they rolled him off for the surgery. As angry as I was, I was also feeling emotionally bloodied. I had my Walkman and as I started to listen to tunes while I did needlework in the waiting room, I was disappointed to discover that the wrong tape had made its way into the John Hartford case. It was Me and My Guitar by Tony Rice. Knowing Bill’s axiom, I decided to let the music do its job and I would do mine.

By the end of the tape, I was completely rearranged emotionally – still fragile, but feeling I had a friend. Those of you who are familiar with that album know it ends with the particularly poignant song, Fine. I cried through Fine, but they were the tears of release – the letting go of pain and the tears that cleanse the soul. Tony told me I was fine and that was all I needed.

When I returned home, I went back to the rest of Big Kitty’s Tony Rice collection and rediscovered him. During the times when my life was in turmoil, Tony’s smooth baritone and elegant guitar shaved off the rough edges of my emotions. While the guitar studs were busy trying to play his hot licks, I was listening to the songs he chose and I was hearing the way he sang the words. It took a rare man to sing that body of work given the depth of the emotions they could arouse. When dysphonia struck his vocal chords, I mourned my own loss as much as his. I needed him!

What is remarkable about this album is that he has chosen to include three songs that he had recorded some time ago but hadn’t released. One is by his late brother, Larry Rice, a gifted songwriter and wonderful mandolinist. Another is a simple song that he recorded in the lower range of his current voice limitation. The one that knocked my socks off is the one he wrote and the fact that this is the first recorded song of his that has lyrics. And what lyrics they are!

Let me return to Fine. There was a mysterious dedication on the album regarding that song. I consulted Bill Vernon, the absolute authority on bluegrass dirt, and he explained that Tony had been hit squarely between the eyes with a marital explosion. Evidently Never Meant to Be was written around the same time. Where Fine was a declaration of love, Never Meant to Be expressed his feelings of betrayal and abandonment. Clearly, Tony Rice is a man whose emotions have been all over the map and his music is his refuge. In creating it, he made it my refuge, as well.

I don’t know whether it’s our common age (I’m a whopping six months older, but he’s the one who wears the mileage -) or the era of insouciance with regard to relationships that we lived through in the seventies and early eighties, but each of us bears the scars. We’ve both known the meaning of Hard Love, and we’ve both been able to smile through The Tennessee Waltz. When I hear his version of Norman Blake’s tune, Green Light on the Southern, I can cheerfully sing along, substituting my off-key words ‘the green light on the Rock Island Railroad Line…’

I admire Tony Rice’s courage in recording the work of songwriters who could express what he was feeling. When I hear his rich guitar work, I am transported. When that guitar is accompanied by the nuanced mandolin playing of Jimmy Gaudreau and Jimmy’s tenor harmonies, life is good.