If you’re a fan of bluegrass or acoustic music in general, and Tony Rice is not on your short list of greatest guitarists, then the only possible reason is that you’ve never heard him play. Rice, who died in 2020 at age 69, was a master craftsman whose influence, particularly when he performed in tandem with equals such as mandolinist David Grisman and banjoist Béla Fleck or in his own Tony Rice Unit, remains incalculable. Church Street Blues, originally released in 1983, is something different though. Although Wyatt Rice, Tony’s guitar-playing brother, appears on four songs, this was largely a Tony Rice solo record, with the musician’s vocals receiving as much attention as his picking. The title track, written by Norman Blake, another peer of Rice’s, starts things off, taken at midtempo and reaffirming not only Rice’s virtuosity on guitar but also his amiability as a singer. Largely alternating between both traditional and modern folk and bluegrass material here, Rice was adept at customizing any song. His take on Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline tune “One More Night” retains the original’s good-time country feel while tailoring it just enough that it would have worked at one of Dylan’s early coffeehouse gigs. Rice’s version of “Pride of Man” has more in common with composer Hamilton Camp’s original than Quicksilver Messenger Service’s electric remake, and two other folk standards, Tom Paxton’s “Last Thing on My Mind” and Ralph McTell’s “Streets of London,” are easy on the ears, two more ideal showcases for Rice’s superb musicianship. But when he shifts gears into bluegrass (Bill Monroe and Byron Berline’s “The Gold Rush” and Jimmie Rodgers’ buoyant “Any Old Time”), Rice is in his element there as well. What a talent he was.