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The Rice Brothers

Band · Active 1992–1994 · based in California/Virginia
Gospel Traditional Bluegrass Classic Bluegrass

The Rice Brothers was the album-and-band project that finally brought all four musical Rice siblings — Larry, Tony, Ronnie, and Wyatt — together on record. Though each brother had distinguished himself separately (Tony with the New South, the David Grisman Quintet, and the Tony Rice Unit; Larry with J.D. Crowe; Wyatt in the Tony Rice Unit; Ronnie as bassist and mastering engineer), the Rice Brothers recordings captured the family's shared roots in a way that none of their individual work had.

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  • Herb Rice, the father, was a mandolin player and member of California's Golden State Boys (with Hal and Leon Poindexter); he taught each of his four sons to play: Larry mandolin, Tony and Wyatt guitar, Ronnie upright bass.
  • Larry (1949–2006), the oldest, was a syncopated mandolinist-vocalist who had joined J.D. Crowe's Kentucky Mountain Boys in 1969 — moving Tony into the band shortly after. Died of cancer in 2006.
  • Tony (1951–2020) needs no introduction — see separate entries for the Tony Rice solo catalog and the Tony Rice Unit.
  • Wyatt (b. 1965 in Long Beach, California) was the youngest full-time musician of the four; played rhythm guitar in the Tony Rice Unit for years before recording his own Rounder album New Market Gap (1989) and later leading Wyatt Rice & Santa Cruz (Picture in a Tear, 1996).
  • Ronnie played bass and later built a second career as a mastering engineer at Time Life Records and runs the Rice Mastering studio; produces with Wyatt.
  • The Rice Brothers (Rounder, 1989) was the first album, originally Larry's initiative, expanded to include all four brothers with Rickie Simpkins (fiddle) and Tracy Collins (piano, drums).
  • The Rice Brothers 2 (Rounder, 1994) continued the quartet's work with a mix of originals and standards — material like “Grapes on the Vine” (Steve Gillette/Charles John Quarto) and “This Old House” (Craig Bickhardt/Thom Schuyler).
  • The brothers also appeared together on Mark Johnson's Clawgrass (1994), credited as “Mark Johnson with the Rice Brothers and Friends.”
  • Additionally, Larry and Wyatt recorded as a duo on Pinecastle (Larry and Wyatt Rice).
  • Tony and Larry also teamed with Chris Hillman (Byrds, Flying Burrito Brothers) and Herb Pedersen in Rice, Rice, Hillman & Pedersen — releasing three albums between 1997 and the mid-2000s.
  • The Rice family's combined catalog is central to late-20th-century bluegrass: the combination of California-honed technique, bluegrass traditionalism, and songwriter sensibility that defined a generation.
  • Larry Rice
    Played on recordings with The Rice Brothers
  • Ron Rice
    Played on recordings with The Rice Brothers
  • Tony Rice
    Played on recordings with The Rice Brothers
  • Wyatt Rice
    Played on recordings with The Rice Brothers
  • Bill Emerson
    Played on recordings with The Rice Brothers
  • Rickie Simpkins
    Played on recordings with The Rice Brothers
  • Jerry Douglas
    Played on recordings with The Rice Brothers

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