TommyEmmanuel

Tommy Emmanuel

One acoustic guitar that sounds like a whole band

Tommy Emmanuel was born in 1955 in Muswellbrook, New South Wales, and picked up the guitar as a small child. He and his siblings spent much of their early childhood on the road as a touring family act, playing wherever an audience could be found across rural Australia. Around the age of seven he heard Chet Atkins on the radio, and the sound of one player covering bass, rhythm and melody at once became the goal he would chase for the rest of his life.

After his father's death in the mid-1960s, Tommy and his older brother Phil kept performing, eventually settling into Sydney's music scene. Through the 1970s and 1980s he became one of Australia's busiest session and touring guitarists, working across pop, rock and television, and spending time on stage with the rock band Dragon. His solo recording career gathered pace in the late 1980s, with albums that mixed electric fusion, country picking and increasingly ambitious acoustic arrangements.

The 1990s turned him decisively toward solo acoustic performance. A long friendship with his hero Chet Atkins produced the duet album The Day Finger Pickers Took Over the World in 1997, and in 1999 Atkins named him a Certified Guitar Player, an honour Chet bestowed on only a handful of musicians. In 2000 Tommy and Phil played at the closing ceremony of the Sydney Olympic Games, broadcast to a vast worldwide audience.

From the 2000s onward he became a relentless international touring act, playing hundreds of solo shows a year and building a devoted following through concert videos shared online. He recorded duet projects with jazz guitarist Martin Taylor and a guest-filled series of Accomplice albums, and he was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia. Now in his sixties and seventies, he remains a benchmark for fingerstyle players everywhere.

The 10 greatest Tommy Emmanuel solos

1. 1
   Initiation

   Tommy Emmanuel · solo by Tommy Emmanuel · 2000
2. 2
   Those Who Wait

   Tommy Emmanuel · solo by Tommy Emmanuel · 2004
3. 3
   The Day Finger Pickers Took Over the World

   Chet Atkins & Tommy Emmanuel · solo by Tommy Emmanuel & Chet Atkins · 1997
4. 4
   Smokey Mountain Lullaby

   Chet Atkins and Tommy Emmanuel · solo by Tommy Emmanuel · 1997
5. 5
   Determination

   Tommy Emmanuel · solo by Tommy Emmanuel · 1991
6. 6
   Endless Road

   Tommy Emmanuel · solo by Tommy Emmanuel · 2004
7. 7
   The Mystery

   Tommy Emmanuel · solo by Tommy Emmanuel · 2006
8. 8
   Guitar Boogie

   Tommy Emmanuel · solo by Tommy Emmanuel · 2000
9. 9
   Mombasa

   Tommy Emmanuel · solo by Tommy Emmanuel · 2000
10. 10
    Classical Gas

    Tommy Emmanuel · solo by Tommy Emmanuel · 1995

The sound

Emmanuel plays in the Travis and Atkins thumb-picking tradition, keeping an alternating bass going with a thumbpick while his fingers carry melody and harmony above it, so a single steel-string guitar sounds like a small combo. He adds percussive slaps, knocks and taps on the guitar body, sudden dynamic drops to a whisper, harmonics, and fast single-note runs borrowed from rock and jazz. His tone is bright, clear and very even across the strings, and his arrangements move freely between country boogie, Beatles-style balladry and blues, always driven by his rhythmic energy and showmanship.

• Maton EBG808TE (guitar) His signature Australian-built dreadnought and the main instrument of his solo acoustic career.
• Maton TE Personal (guitar) A second signature Maton he rotates on stage, voiced for warmth and projection.
• Maton AP5-Pro pickup and preamp (effect) The onboard system in his Matons that lets the guitar's percussive sounds come through clearly in large halls.
• AER acoustic amplifiers (amp) Compact German acoustic amps he has long used as stage monitors and backline.
• Thumbpick (effect) Essential to his Atkins-style technique, giving his bass notes their punch.

Covers

• Classical Gas, originally by Mason Williams He turns the orchestral-pop hit into a solo acoustic showstopper that has become one of his signature numbers.
• Guitar Boogie, originally by Arthur Smith He plays the old boogie with an audacious mix of speed, humour and bass-line drive.
• Windy and Warm, originally by John D. Loudermilk (popularised by Chet Atkins) A fingerpicking rite of passage that he plays as a nod to his mentor.
• Somewhere Over the Rainbow, originally by Judy Garland He reharmonises the standard into a delicate, chiming solo guitar arrangement.
• Beatles medley, originally by The Beatles Songs from the Lennon-McCartney catalogue woven into one continuous fingerstyle arrangement.

Timeline

• 1955 Born in Muswellbrook, New South Wales
• 1960 Touring rural Australia as a child in the family band
• 1966 His father dies; he and brother Phil continue performing
• 1987 Releases the solo album Up from Down Under
• 1997 Records The Day Finger Pickers Took Over the World with Chet Atkins
• 1999 Named a Certified Guitar Player by Chet Atkins
• 2000 Plays the Sydney Olympics closing ceremony with Phil
• 2010 Appointed a Member of the Order of Australia
• 2013 Releases The Colonel & the Governor with Martin Taylor
• 2018 Releases Accomplice One; brother Phil dies

Facts

1. He was touring as a performer in a family act before he was old enough to have much formal schooling.
2. As a boy he wrote a fan letter to Chet Atkins, who later became his friend and duet partner.
3. Chet Atkins gave the Certified Guitar Player title to only a handful of people, and Tommy is one of them.
4. He plays almost entirely by ear and has said he never learned to read music fluently.
5. His older brother Phil Emmanuel was also a highly regarded guitarist in Australia.
6. He and Phil performed at the closing ceremony of the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
7. He spent time as a touring guitarist with the New Zealand-born rock band Dragon.
8. Australian maker Maton has produced signature models bearing his initials.
9. He often uses the body of his guitar as a drum, slapping and knocking out rhythms mid-song.
10. He was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for his services to music.