Larry Rice
Best known for
Mandolin
Lead Vocals
Larry Rice was the oldest of the four Rice brothers — Tony, Wyatt, and Ronnie being his siblings — and a gifted mandolinist, singer, and songwriter whose career was often overshadowed by his more famous brother Tony. Best known for his stint as an original member of J.D. Crowe’s seminal New South lineup, he cultivated a distinctive syncopated mandolin style and a body of thoughtful original songs across five decades in bluegrass.
- Born Larry Prentis Rice in Danville, Virginia, the oldest of the Rice brothers in a musical Kentucky-rooted family. Father Herb Rice played mandolin; taught each of his four sons a bluegrass instrument — Tony and Wyatt guitar, Larry mandolin, Ronnie upright bass.
- Family moved around through his childhood — Florida, Georgia, Texas, North Carolina — before settling in Los Angeles, where Herb joined the Golden State Boys (inspired by and modeled on the Kentucky Colonels).
- As a teenager in the Golden State Boys, Larry befriended fellow teen Chris Hillman (before the Byrds and Flying Burrito Brothers); the two would reunite decades later in Rice, Rice, Hillman & Pedersen.
- Late 1960s: played in Southern California bands including the Haphazards and Aunt Dinah’s Quilting Party with his brothers Tony and Ronnie.
- In 1969 (or 1971, per some accounts), Larry moved from California east to Kentucky to join J.D. Crowe’s first band, the Kentucky Mountain Boys — becoming the first of the Rice brothers to work with Crowe. Bobby Slone, Crowe’s bass player, had known the Rices in California and recommended them.
- Tony Rice followed his brother to Crowe’s band in 1971. Both Rice brothers played on the pre-Rounder Kentucky Mountain Boys recordings.
- In 1975 recorded his first solo album Mr. Poverty on King Bluegrass. Toured with Dickey Betts’s post-Allman Brothers band in the mid-1970s in support of Betts’s Highway Call album.
- Retired from music 1979–1985. Returned with Hurricanes and Daydreams on Rebel Records (1986), followed by Time Machine (1987), Artesia (1990), and Notions and Novelties (1996). Most featured brother Tony Rice and other top pickers.
- In 1989 recorded The Rice Brothers for Rounder with all four Rice brothers — Larry, Tony, Wyatt, and Ron.
- In 1997, with brother Tony, Chris Hillman, and Herb Pedersen, formed the bluegrass-country “anti-supergroup” Rice, Rice, Hillman & Pedersen. The group released three albums between 1997 and 2001.
- Died May 13, 2006 in Inverness, Florida from complications of mesothelioma, related to his work in industrial power-generating facilities. He was 57.
- Rebel Records released a posthumous 16-track career retrospective, If You Only Knew: The Best of Larry Rice, in 2014.
- Larry’s 1959 Gibson F-5 mandolin, purchased by his father Herb from McCabe’s Music Store in Santa Monica in 1961, is on display at the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame & Museum.
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Tony RicePlayed on recordings with Tony Rice
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The Rice BrothersPlayed on recordings with The Rice Brothers
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J.D. Crowe and the Kentucky Mountain BoysPlayed on recordings with J.D. Crowe and the Kentucky Mountain Boys
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J.D. Crowe and the New SouthPlayed on recordings with J.D. Crowe and the New South
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Larry RicePlayed on recordings with Larry Rice
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Rice, Rice, Hillman and PedersenPlayed on recordings with Rice, Rice, Hillman and Pedersen