Tony Rice was the GOAT! Thank you for telling people about him. Seeing him play live in the 1980s was an inspiration to my guitar playing. He was the definition of economy of motion.

Flatpicking that song, that fast, and that clean is pure SHREDDING! Tony was one of the all time greats.

Everyone comes across that magical video of Tony playing the church street blues and then find themselves going thru all the Tony Rice videos there is and in the process get awestruck by his casual excellence and his incredible music. Thank you for making this video.

It’s always so refreshing to see Tony Rice get some love in the greater guitar community

This might be my favorite of the many videos of yours that I have liked. You introduced a little Tony Rice into some lives that were unaware. You had to work at accomplishing a goal, even at your level of ability. You showed that, even if most of us just want to get to "that next level", there's always another level. Finally, that was a touching speech by Tony and now I will look at the entire video for context. Great job all around Sammy.

I'm a massive fan of Tony. I'm super impressed a TR/bluegrass newbie picked this up so fast and with great tone. The tone is what really set Tony apart from others in this style. Great job!!!

Excellent work. What an insightful, inspirational and thankful message to go along with the song itself. How appropriate for Thanksgiving. Thank you for sharing.

loved the transitions for each section.

Thanks for sharing your struggle, your process and how you dealt with your self doubt. It was very relatable and made this, in my opinion, one of your best videos yet.

I’ve been crazy about this song for years and have never been able to play it! Thank you for writing coherent tabs and doing a play through. You’re the GOAT brotha!

one of my favorite songs of all time, thanks for covering this one Sammy G

Love Tony Rice and think of this song all the time

Love your stuff! Thanks for all you do! 😀

Hey Sammy G, I don't know if I'm a typical viewer, I don't play guitar although I have a deep and long-lasting love for all kinds of guitar music. This is an amazing video, and I want to express my appreciation for the amount of effort and heart you put into your work, both musical and photo/video/editing. I wasn't expecting to get emotional while watching, but the attitude and philosophy really struck a chord this time around. Love your stuff, keep being your awesome self, and best wishes to you and yours this holiday season.

Hello. As an amateur banjo and bass from Spain, I´d suggest (if you don´t know it yet) to you the Punch Brothers record "Hell on Church Street". I´ve been always Tony Rice fan (I have "Church St. Blues" on LP format) and The Punch Brothers also are, for sure. The have not simply make a rendition, but also something great, with both respect and innovation. I hope you´ll enjoy it (the final is really surprising to me again and again). Thank you for your videos.

This is great timing. I’m just getting into acoustic and fingerstyle after years of primarily electric blues. Thanks for turning me onto Tony Rice!

I always take away so much from your videos, and this one is no exception. Thank you for the inspiring and uplifting content.

Beautiful 😊 great storytelling mixed with practical steps

This was so good. I learned so much about guitar, music, and myself through this. Fantastic work man. Incredibly inspiring stuff here. Very glad to have come across this. Thanks for what you do mate!

Beautiful. Great vid, awesome explanation. Really enjoyed this.

4:02 This is such a minor detail but I love the way you use your finger to show where in the tab you are

I was already so inspired and blown away by this video. Then I found myself floored and in pieces by that clip of Tony. Wow. Thank you so much for this.

Thank you for all the ways you inspire !

I’m 45 now but when I was 17 an old blue grass guy gave me a Tony Rice tape. It changed my life. He was a cool dude, the song is actually written by Norman Blake, he is a cool dude as well. Tony’s version is amazing. Very inspiring video. Thanks

Simply beautiful.

Man, absolutely beautiful.

Thanks for this! Very inspiring.

this was an insanely awesome video... cheers, sir

Awesome breakdown! Great tips. Thanks for demystifying music!

Great video, great song!!!! I really enjoy bluegrass guitar playing, especially when the skill level is just guitar god level. It’s unfortunate the unless you’re in the genre most people have never heard of most of these tremendous artists. Keeping it real Sammy G and giving us all that special knowledge only the way you can. Thank you 🙏

Beautiful video. I feel like the class of that great historic bit of music shone through your entire video, the way you handled the challenge and made it a tribute to Tony Rice.. Great stuff, keep challenging yourself! :D

Thank you, I needed that lesson. I already new how to cross pick. I need to work on the other part of the lesson never give up on life. It truly is amazing when you can receive and recognize a message from someone that didn’t know who they were sending it to. I’m sure I’m not the only one that it was meant for but I hope that anyone else that needed to hear it was listening. Thank you so much!

This my favorite video of yours, hands down! Many blessings to you for sharing this process, and expanding Tony's reach just a little bit more. He truly is one of the greats, and is much less well known than he should be.

This piece is beautiful. And it’s beyond me. But I love the thoughtful analysis. (And the video details that probably took a bunch of work for a few seconds of content - like the record player transitions.) ❤

I feel so lucky to have found your channel. I struggle with a nerve disease that affects my hands and my playing, but watching your videos is the first time I've felt hope that I can revive my guitar playing in over a decade. Thanks man!!

This was a great video. Please make more videos like this. Stuff exploring great guitar riffs and songs and showing us you learning them.

Beautiful analysis and lovely video.

I LOVE this video format! Would love to see it more!

Very nice analysis Sammy!! I'm going to try this one!

This TR video is literally why I started playing guitar. Thanks for sharing this to the masses!

Great job !!!❤

A very wonderful and fitting tribute to one of the great guitarists of the last century.

I watched this twice, thank you, Samurai, for sharing about Tony Rice, what a wonderful player he was! So are you too, Samurai, and, at that, you have a big heart.

Playing with clarity, tone and precision that Tony plays with… it’s unrivaled.

That was awesome Sami!

This was really nicely put together video, nice work my dude

Thank you for educating these people:) love you

Tony Rice…so amazing. Thanks for shining a light on a legend.

i'm not much a bluegrass listener, not sure why as something like this I really love. I was amazed by that intro. And this is going to send me down my own bluegrass rabbit hole! Loving the transitions in this video! All of them were so 🤌 and it never hurts to be on a couch for thoughts! lol

Saw that exact video 15 or so years ago and fell in love. I was very young at the time, but this is a song and performance that I often go back to and it gives me great joy. I've occasionally tried to learn it, it's tough! Tony's got some really weird thumb motion with his downward economy picking. He's a master for sure, great job on learning it!

man...I truly appreciate your channel...its cool that you cover an amazing array of "guitar related things and tomfoolery"...and you do it extremely well. Thanks for turning me on to yet another new very cool tune...and awesome lesson. Great job!

Brilliant video and a beautiful song that I've never heard before. Thanks for sharing.

super engaging, editing and segments ruled. good video :)

Another great video...as usual.

Thank you for posting this. More people need to know about Tony.

Love the 'find your perfect string' thing. Will be checking that out!! Many thanks on this great Thanksgiving!!

Incredibly interesting, and meaningful content. Thank you Sir.

Woah dude, this was an epic video. You mashed a bunch of your skills. Excellent work!

Dear Sammy G. Sammy H. here... I am 70 now. I am groomed to play Tony's style bluegrass for 66 years and counting. Selah. Did you hear in your clip where Tony says, "If my Heavenly Father is willing right now..." I know you did. You nailed this content, ohhh my Gosh, you beautifully gave us the keys to the Rice method of cross-picking. I thank you. I bought strings for my dreadnought at the music store where Clarence White jammed. I suck at bluegrass. Still trying to honor my Dad's love for the Bluegrass genre. I love it too. But like you, music is wide man... sooo wide! I want to share a key to his "off" timing. He sings in the recording of Church Street Blues, and the picking lead follows/errr.../mirrors the lyric and vocal timing of his wonderful approach. I prayed he would gain his voice back those last few years. Sammy? Your work is awesome. We both share the magic love of that song. Someday I may play a rendition of it on my own KZfaq channel, like at 72.... lol!!! Great work. Great work!!! Sincerely, Sam Hatman, son of Sam Hatman, two really old pickers, but I'm still kickin!

Yes, more stuff like this!

Inspiring. Glad you stuck with it.

Your channel is awesome! I wish I knew it before, thanks for this video!

Wonderful video!

Great video, made me buy the course bundle

Don't forget this was written originally by Norman Blake! It was on his 1975 record Whiskey Before Breakfast. Norman plays it a bit differently, but it's also an amazing guitar performance.

Really!! I mean awesome... I'm gonna listen to this again! Sooo well done, and worth the effort!

Tony's Georgia on my mind is a masterpiece and masterclass of playing a simple song in the most creative way possible.

Professional bluegrass musician here; tickled to see you discover and highlight Tony’s amazing picking. You did a great job. Put mediums on that guitar and your tone would be closer, I think. (Bonus points for whittling out the sound hole with a pocket knife.) 😉

Really great work

I've never quite got this one down, I think I may need a bigger practice couch? It's such a perfect song dude, I'm in NW England and I too only heard of Tony a couple of years ago. You can tell it's effortless when he plays and he's such an awesome guy during interviews. Thanks dude.

Thank you for exposing everyone to this great Norman Blake tune. More importantly, to one of the best guitar players ever. I can’t help be listen to some of his work IN AWE. As a music lover who has gained such an appreciation for music due to this youtube platform and videos like this, I wish that more people could listen to his music in awe like I have. You can listen to Manzanita to get the bluegrass, and then Unit of Measure to get the pure bliss that is tony rice. Underrated albums because they were released by Tony Rice Unit rather than just his name sake

This one got me in the feels and proves three chords can be all you need!

Thanks for introducing me to this. What a treat

Woah that is awesome.

one of the toughest tunes I ever learned too! I made several lesson videos on it.

Bluegrass guitarist here. You need to alternate pick. In bluegrass, a piece like Church Street Blues is super hard to play if you're not picking with proper economy of motion. You should be picking either down or up based on the beat you're on. If you're on the one, you pick a downstroke. If you're on any offbeat, you should pick an upstroke. This is a super essential part of flatpicking. Hope this helps.

This is a great video. I like how that song intro kind of sounds like it's not in 4/4 until the last few bars are played which makes it stand out for an acoustic intro. I also like D'addario more with its new features on their website. My favourite string brand after trying many different strings is D'addario for all my different guitars.

Glad to see you make the point that such nuanced tone voicing can come from simple “cowboy chords.” Jazz sometimes makes chords more complicated than they need to be. It’s all about melody and phrasing, how the overtones of the passing melodic lines resonate with the basic simple chord structure. Really nice video. Also, I bought a tortoise shell pick once and ended up giving it to someone who liked heavy gauge strings and thick as a brick flat picks. Hope you can do more on some of these classic North American guitar styles

It is beautiful and rollercoastery.

I started learning guitar when Guitar Hero with all the craze. My guitar teacher was a dedicated bluegrass student. He idolized Tony Rice. I wish I had learned more of what he loved before he passed away from cancer.

Awesome job bro, I play guitar and mandolin I love bluegrass, I'm 16, been playing 5 years, but I'm new to the traditional flat picking bluegrass style. Tony Rice is definitely one of the greats, bluegrass is a style that I'm glad to see is being appreciated.

Thanks for introducing me to a new inspiration!!!

I love that so much

Well said.... Thank you

holy shit i just discovered that exact song and video yesterday, clicked on this one and was thinking "heh itd be funny if this is about church street blues". crazy how the algorithm works

This video was so well produced and shot

Tony Rice was the greatest bluegrass/dawg music (see: David Grisman) guitarist of his generation. Currently, only Molly Tuttle comes close, in my possibly limited experience. Church Street Blues was written by Norman Blake, and is on his album Whiskey Before Breakfast. Norman's more firmly traditional in his approach, but he's also a monster picker.

This video was beautiful

Best video so far!!

Thanks for the video! I love that song. It is on my guitar songs I want to learn bucket list. I am currently learning the bluegrass version of Cliffs of Dover. I’ve never played bluegrass before and it is a monster. I’ve wanted to give up and this video is inspired me to keep going. Thanks!

Sounds a little like “whiskey before breakfast”, another bluegrass classic. It is one of the most fun songs to play.

Tony did some amazang work, . Iboth instrumental and vocal. I have been a fan since 1983

That was really insightful - thank you! Also, thanks for the breakdown. When I first heard it I couldn't follow where one chord was ending and the other starting. My brain was looking for time signatures and I was completely thrown off. To see it actually just relies on a couple of cowboy chords at its core is wonderful and shows how you can make magic out of even the simplest things. Isn't the guitar such a versatile instrument?

Wow! You‘re really speaking from my heart….struggling for years to play it properly

Sammy G nerding out over the great Anthony David Rice… I feel complete.

SammyG Ive been playing for the past 23+ years everyday and i wanna tell you, I respect you as a guitarist and your phislosophy. Would love to jam with you one day. Keep the great stuff coming.

Editing is next-level in this video! Should have saved the upgrade for a Curiosity Stream sponsorship! Haha

That was definitely inspirational. I'm going back to learn more than the first 30 bars of Asturias.

excellent show

Definitely didn’t think this video would bring tears to my eyes.