Wayne Rice Archives - Bluegrass Today

The Bluegrass Special with Wayne Rice returns in San Diego!

Great news for bluegrass fans in southern southern California!

The Bluegrass Special, recently cancelled after nearly 45 years on KSON in San Diego, has found a new home. Show host Wayne Rice tells us that it will henceforth be heard on Sunday afternoons on Mountain Country 107.9, based in Alpine, CA.

Mountain Country 107.9 is a small, low-power station, but there are multiple ways you can find the show if you are outside of their broadcast range, about 30 miles east of San Diego.

Wayne says he is delighted with the show’s new home, and new time.

“The new Bluegrass Special will be on Sundays from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m. (PST), a much better time slot when people are still awake! And instead of two hours, we’ll have three—so I can play a lot more of today’s bluegrass, along with classics, oldies, Gospel, and local artists. I’ll also keep you up-to-date on local bluegrass concerts and events once they start happening again. This will still be San Diego’s bluegrass radio program.”

He also points out five ways you can listen to Mountain Country:

If you are in the east country (Alpine, El Cajon, Lakeside) just tune your radio to 107.9!
From your computer, or any other internet-connected device, use your browser to find TheMountainFM.com. There is a play button on the home page which will start the music!
From your smartphone or tablet, download the Simple Radio app for Android/iOS. Once it’s installed, search for Mountain Country 107.9 and it will appear. Another radio app that works the same way is Live365.
You can also listen on your Amazon Smartspeaker (ALEXA) or any Alexa-enabled device like Kindle Fire Tablet. To listen, you must first say, “ALEXA – ENABLE MOUNTAIN COUNTRY ONE OH SEVEN POINT NINE.” You only have to do that once. After that, you only have to say “ALEXA – PLAY MOUNTAIN COUNTRY 107.9.”
On your AMAZON FIRE TV/ROKU device, go to the app store and download the free ALPINE CHANNEL APP. Press play to listen.

There is more than a full generation of bluegrass fans around San Diego who have been raised on Wayne’s curation of contemporary and vintage bluegrass. It’s terrific news to learn that The Bluegrass Special will live on.

The Bluegrass Special with Wayne Rice cancelled on KSON

Since 1976, bluegrass lovers in San Diego, CA have enjoyed a weekly dose of new and vintage grass on The Bluegrass Special, hosted by Wayne Rice on KSON. The show survived numerous ownership and format changes over these 44 years, but last week Rice was informed by station management that the show was cancelled.

Wayne tells us that a few days after airing his Bill Monroe birthday show on September 13, he received notice that all weekend programming originating at KSON was cancelled effective immediately. Management, i.e., Entercom, who had merged with previous owners CBS Radio in 2017, had decided to rely entirely on network programming on the weekends, presumably as a cost savings effort.

For many years Rice has been a popular figure in southern California, as a bluegrass performer, for his Christian youth ministry, and, of course, as a radio host. He has been an active member of the IBMA, and produced their annual awards show for several years. Multiple bluegrass concerts in the San Diego area were promoted by Wayne over the years as well.

In a particularly ironic note, Rice was honored with the IBMA Distinguished Achievement Award during last week’s World of Bluegrass celebration, for his lifetime’s work advocating for the music in southern California. Presentation of his award was given virtually by Compass Records President Alison Brown, who grew up in the area and recalls many happy hours listening to The Bluegrass Special as a youngster.

Here is her presentation, recorded before the show was cancelled.

Because of the timing of the show’s retirement, Rice wasn’t even able to announce it on air, and offer an adieu to his many loyal followers.

“I didn’t have the opportunity to say goodbye to my listeners–who some of my KSON colleagues called Wayniacs,” he said. “So, if you were a Wayniac … So long and THANK YOU! We had a good run and I’m very proud to have been the radio voice of bluegrass music in San Diego for so many years.”

Rice says that he has no plans to resurrect The Bluegrass Special, but sounded open to the idea should an offer be forthcoming. He will, however, continue to offer his Bluegrass Bios web site, which is continually updated as a service to bluegrass radio hosts and the wider community of grassers.

He also intends to keep up his work with the IBMA and the IBMA Trust Fund.

Truly the end of an era for bluegrass on the west coast.

Gospel Choices #6 – Wayne Rice

Caricature of Wayne Rice by JP’s Custom Caricature

Here’s the fifth contribution of a periodical feature, where we ask bluegrass personalities to choose their top five Gospel songs. This week we hear from celebrated radio host Wayne Rice.

Somebody Touched Me – The Dillards: Back Porch Bluegrass (Elektra Records EKL 232)
On the Sea of Life – Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver: Rock My Soul (Sugar Hill Records SH 3717)
Hallelujah Turnpike – The Lewis Family: Hallelujah Turnpike (Canaan Records CAS 9847)
Solid Rock – Lonesome River Band: Old Country Town (Sugar Hill Records SH-CD 3818)
5. He’s Holding on to Me – Ron Block: Faraway Land (Rounder Records 0477)

Wayne says …

I have always loved Gospel music. While I didn’t get to hear much bluegrass Gospel music growing up in Southern California, my family went to church every Sunday and we loved to sing. Our church would occasionally invite a southern Gospel quartet to perform at one of our services, and that was always a thrill. They were like rock stars to me, and I dreamed of someday being able to sing in a group like that.

I never got to sing in a southern Gospel quartet but after learning to play banjo, I did get to play and sing with a few bluegrass bands, all of which have featured Gospel music. I’ve also featured Gospel music on my Sunday night radio program in San Diego. Here are a few songs that have stood out for me:

Somebody Touched Me – I list this song first because my infatuation with bluegrass started with the Dillards. I must have played their 1963 Back Porch Bluegrass album hundreds if not thousands of times trying to learn to play banjo like Doug Dillard (I gave up on that). The only Gospel song on that album was Somebody Touched Me, and so I gravitated to it immediately. Our family band at that time was called the Rice Kryspies (no kidding) and we did Somebody Touched Me everywhere we played. And just like the Dillards, we always asked the audience to sing along on the chorus. It’s one of those songs that can get stuck in your head for a long time, which isn’t a bad thing.

On the Sea of Life – I can still feel the goose-bumps from the first time I heard this song from Doyle Lawson’s Rock My Soul album. And when I played it on my radio show it became an instant listener favorite. 35 years later, I’m still getting requests for that Sea of Life song and it still holds up very well. Of course, there’s not a bad cut on that entire album, but Doyle certainly outdid himself when he arranged this song with his original Quicksilver band which included Jimmy Haley, Lou Reid and Terry Baucom. I’ve heard Doyle perform On the Sea of Life in concert numerous times with many different versions of his band, and I get goose-bumps every time.

Hallelujah Turnpike – I’d be remiss to not include a song from the first family of bluegrass Gospel music. This song from their 1979 album of the same title has to be the quintessential Lewis Family barn-burner. When Little Roy kicks off Hallelujah Turnpike, the notes come out of his banjo like bullets out of a machine gun. And it doesn’t let up the entire song, complemented by some ferocious fiddling by Buddy Spicher. This song still makes me smile. I have always loved the energy and excitement (and fun!) of a Lewis Family performance—whether live or on recordings—and Hallelujah Turnpike seems to me to epitomize what the Lewis Family did best, namely to bring Gospel joy to all their fans.

Solid Rock – This song from the Lonesome River Band’s landmark Old Country Town album has everything you want in a good bluegrass Gospel song—a punchy mandolin kickoff, creative call-and-response vocals, tight quartet harmonies, sparkling banjo and easy to understand lyrics. Ronnie Bowman opens with “A foundation …,” Dan Tyminski answers with “I’ll build” and the quartet including Sammy Shelor and Kenny Smith adds “Upon the Solid Rock …” When the banjo and the rest of the band join in, the song gets into that classic LRB groove. If you listen to the words of the last line of the chorus, you’ll know why I introduce this song on the radio as the Stairway to Heaven of bluegrass music.

He’s Holding on to Me – I think most of us know that Ron Block is not only a wonderful musician but also a devout Christ-follower who takes his faith quite seriously without being obnoxious about it. That’s not to say that he isn’t comfortable being open about what he believes. In fact, many of his songs express his beliefs quite clearly. He has written dozens of wonderful Gospel songs and He’s Holding On to Me is one of my favorites. The second cut on his Faraway Land solo project, not only do I love the performance of this song from a musical standpoint (with help from Dan Tyminski, Adam Steffey, Stuart Duncan, the Forbes Family, Ricky Wasson and Barry Bales) but I love the message. “I’m not holding onto Jesus; he’s holding onto me.” What an amazing and comforting thought—that even when my faith is weak, He is strong. Thanks Ron, for this reminder which very reassuring and hopeful to me.

Wayne Rice is the weekly host of KSON’s Bluegrass Special, now in its 42nd year on KSON-FM in San Diego, California. He also curates the website BluegrassBios.com featuring profiles of the stars of bluegrass music. He is a former member of the band Brush Arbor, winner of the ACM Award for Vocal Group of the Year (1973). Besides his radio show, he works with a ministry called The Legacy Coalition.

40 years on KSON for Wayne Rice

Which bluegrass radio host has the longest running show on the same station? Seriously… I’m asking you guys.

We don’t know who actually owns this record, but a candidate surely has to be Wayne Rice, who is about to celebrate 40 years with his show, The Bluegrass Special, on San Diego, CA’s country powerhouse, KSON. This Sunday at 10:00 p.m. Wayne will crank up what he reckons to be his 2080th program, and take it into into its 41st year.

Wayne shared this creaky remembrance on his personal blog about the launch of his show.

“It was on March 7, 1976 that my radio show, The Bluegrass Special, went on the air for the first time. I can’t remember a time in my life when I have been more nervous. When the clock hit 6:00 p.m. (the original air time for my show) I played my intro music from a scratchy LP by banjo player Carl Jackson, wiped the sweat from my brow, opened up the microphone and said ‘Woohoo! It’s time for the Bluegrass Special‘ probably in a very high pitched voice because I was only 13 years old at the time. Make that 30 years old, but my voice was still pretty high pitched. I then played the first song, Bill Monroe’s Uncle Pen.”

He says he can’t remember much else about that initial program. It was 40 years ago, you know. But he has left a lot of bluegrass memories with the people of San Diego since that time.

And The Bluegrass Special has a very large audience. KSON is a powerful and popular station, consistently the #1 country station in their market. Sunday night may not be everyone’s favorite time to tune in, but KSON maintains show archives online for two months, so you can always catch one you miss.

All of KSON’s signal is cybercast online should you want to catch Wayne’s big anniversary program from outside the San Diego market.

Rice also maintains the closest thing we have to a definitive bluegrass wiki at his Bluegrass Bios web site, which he meticulously maintains. The site started through his desire to have a quick reference of bluegrass artists for his own show, and it is now in use by bluegrass radio hosts all around the world. It also contains a helpful holiday reference which suggests suitable bluegrass songs for all the major US holidays.

See all of that at www.bluegrassbios.com.

Congratulations and three cheers to Wayne Rice, 40 years on the radio in service to bluegrass music!