Tony Rice’s Best Loved Albums

April 17, 2026
Episode 516
 Guitar, Specials, Tony Rice

We’re celebrating Tony Rice‘s best loved albums, chosen by Tony’s fans and famous pickers, including Chris Thile and Trey Hensley.

These are the results of over 400 votes cast across Facebook, Instagram and Reddit.

How the albums were chosen

I posted a simple poll asking for people’s favourite Tony Rice albums in three categories:

  1. Tony Rice/Tony Rice Unit album
  2. Album where Tony’s named as one of the artists but it’s not just his record
  3. Any album Tony plays on but isn’t named as an artist

I had over 400 votes in total. Here’s what won in each category, what the most popular album was overall and also what pickers like Chris Thile and Trey Hensley chose as their favourites!

Favourite Tony Rice/Tony Rice Unit albums

There was clear winner in this category, collecting twice as many votes as the album in second place:

  1. Manzanita
  2. Cold on the Shoulder
  3. Church Street Blues
  4. Tony Rice Plays & Sings Bluegrass
  5. Native American

Favourite Tony Rice duo/trio albums

Again, we had a clear winner, with one record getting twice the votes of any other in the category:

  1. Skaggs & Rice
  2. Blake & Rice
  3. Pizza Tapes
  4. Tone Poems
  5. Blake & Rice 2

Favourite album Tony Rice played on

This one was much closer, with just four votes between the top two:

  1. JD Crowe & The New South (Rounder 0044)
  2. The David Grisman Quintet
  3. Drive – Bela Fleck
  4. The Bluegrass Album Band (vol 1)
  5. The Bluegrass Sessions 2 – Bela Fleck

Full list of favourite Tony Rice albums

In order of popularity, here are the results across all three categories, in order of popularity. There was just one vote between first and second place:

  1. Manzanita
  2. Skaggs & Rice
  3. Blake & Rice
  4. Cold on the Shoulder
  5. Church Street Blues
  6. Tony Rice Plays & Sings Bluegrass
  7. Rounder 0044
  8. David Grisman Quintet
  9. Drive – Bela Fleck
  10. Native American
  11. Pizza Tapes
  12. Tone Poems
  13. Bluegrass Album Band 1
  14. Tony Rice Sings Gordon Lightfoot
  15. Backwaters
  16. Me and My Guitar
  17. Blake & Rice 2
  18. Acoustics
  19. Bluegrass Sessions – Bela Fleck
  20. Bluegrass Album Band 2
  21. California Autumn
  22. Guitar
  23. Peter Rowan & Tony Rice Quartet
  24. Unit of Measure
  25. Bluegrass Album Band 3
  26. Dawg & T
  27. Hot Dawg – David Grisman Quintet
  28. The Rice Brothers
  29. River Suite
  30. DGQ Live at the Great American Music Hall
  31. Closer – Kate Wolf
  32. Still Inside
  33. Tony Rice
  34. Banjoland – Tony Trischka
  35. Devlin
  36. Don Reno Family and Friends
  37. Hartford, Rice & Clements
  38. Hurricanes and Daydreams- Larry Rice
  39. Mar West
  40. Rice Hillman Pedersen
  41. Roses in the Snow – Emmylou Harris
  42. Released – Todd Phillips

Famous pickers choose their favourites

Chris Thile

    1. Church Street Blues
    2. Skaggs & Rice
    3. Drive

Trey Hensley

  1. Native American
  2. Pizza Tapes
  3. Bluegrass Album Band 3

Dave Sinko

  1. Church Street Blues
  2. Skaggs & Rice
  3. The David Grisman Quintet

John Stickley

  1. Cold on the Shoulder
  2. Blake & Rice
  3. The David Grisman Quintet

Ethan Sherman

  1. Me and My Guitar
  2. Blake & Rice
  3. The Bluegrass Sessions


More on Tony Rice

There’s more info on Tony, his music and his life and legacy, including hours of exclusive interviews with people who knew and played with Tony on the main Tony Rice interviews page.

You’ll find links to previous podcast episodes celebrating Tony Rice on bluegrassjamalong.com

Other ways to listen

You can listen to this episode of Bluegrass Jam Along on all major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify

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Thanks to Bryan Sutton for his wonderful theme tune to Bluegrass Jam Along (and to Justin Moses for playing the fiddle!)

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