Guitar was Tony Rice’s first solo album. He recorded it at Lemco Recording Studio in Lexington, Kentucky, while he was a member of J. D. Crowe’s band, the New South, and his bandmates played on it: Crowe on banjo and the New South’s bassist, Bobby Slone, on fiddle and bass. Rice’s older brother Larry Rice played mandolin. Tony sang lead on the five vocal numbers and produced the album, and Cecil Jones engineered it.
The eight tracks include Bob Wills’s “Faded Love,” Jimmie Skinner’s “Doin’ My Time,” John D. Loudermilk’s “Windy and Warm,” Merle Travis’s “Nine Pound Hammer” and the fiddle tune “Salt Creek.” Three more are credited as Rice’s arrangements: “Freeborn Man,” “John Hardy” and “Lonesome Reuben.” “Salt Creek,” “Windy and Warm” and “Lonesome Reuben” are instrumentals, and “Lonesome Reuben,” which closes the album, runs just over nine minutes.
The album reached record shops by an indirect route. It came out first in Japan, on Red Clay Records as Got Me a Martin Guitar (RC-103). The US issue came out on King Bluegrass, a regional Kentucky label, as KB 529. Both date from 1974. Rebel Records bought the King Bluegrass catalog in the late 1970s and reissued the album as SLP-1582. Rebel has since issued it on CD, and in 2022 on remastered vinyl. Rice’s second solo album, California Autumn, was recorded in 1974 and was his first made specifically for Rebel.
Tracklist
- 1 Freeborn Man Source Recording 2:50
- 2 Faded Love alt version 2:57
- 3 Salt Creek Source Recording 3:48
- 4 Doin’ My Time Source Recording 4:07
- 5 Windy And Warm 1:33
- 6 John Hardy Source Recording 3:29
- 7 Nine Pound Hammer alt version 2:18
- 8 Reuben’s Train alt version 3:34
