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Tony Rice: The Bill Monroe Collection

Rounder

The Bill Monroe Collection has an air of inevitability surrounding it. Tony Rice, arguably the most accomplished and popular bluegrass-rooted guitarist of the past four decades, has always openly acknowledged his allegiance to the genre’s inventor. But while Rice has recorded six volumes in the Bluegrass Album series with the Bluegrass Album Band since the early ‘80s, until now, he has avoided distilling the Monroe material and grouping it in one package. This single-disc, 14-track collection does just that, drawing from that series and
other previously released Rounder albums. No one has ever questioned that Rice is a hotshot picker, but he’s especially at home in the unadorned vintage breakdowns, ballads and burners of the Monroe era, with songs like “Molly and Tenbrooks,” “Gold Rush” (one of two from the Tony Rice Unit’s excellent Unit of Measure album) and the gospel “River of Death.” He’s always accompanied by equally adept musicians, and the interplay is always at a high level: Witness the lick tradeoffs between Rice, mandolin giant Doyle Lawson and banjoist J.D. Crowe on “Stoney Lonesome,” from 1996’s Bluegrass Album, Vol. 6—Bluegrass Instrumentals. Rice’s solos always dazzle, but what shines through the most is the love for Bill Monroe that Rice and his companions all share.