The legendary bluegrass guitarist returns to his roots with Tony Rice Plays and Sings Bluegrass. Helping him play and sing are such old pals as Douglas, Vassar Clements, the Seldom Scene's Mike Auldridge and John Duffey, the Country Gentlemen's Bill Emerson and Jimmy Gaudreau, and the New Grass Revival's Sam Bush. The album is at once a tribute to the early bluegrass that so inspired Rice, and a reflection of the changes Rice helped bring to bluegrass. On the traditional songs associated with Bill Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs, the Stanley Brothers, Jimmy Martin, and Hylo Brown, Rice sounds right at home pushing those insistent rhythms along and leading those note-bending vocal harmonies. Several other songs, including Bob Dylan's "Girl from the North Country" and Tom Rush's "Galveston Flood," were introduced to the bluegrass repertoire by the Country Gentlemen, and Rice uses them to illustrate the changes that shook bluegrass in the '70s: a more personal, conversational vocal style, a broader harmonic palette, and an increased prominence for guitar leads. No one has mastered those changes while preserving the essence of bluegrass better than Rice. He has always included several bluegrass tunes on each outing, but it's a treat to hear a whole album of nothing but. --Geoffrey Himes