With a career that’s spanned over six decades across multiple continents, Australian guitarist Tommy Emmanuel is a man that can play it all.
He began his musical journey at a young age with his entire family playing instruments. By the time Emmanuel was 6, he was already on the road, touring as the youngest member of a family band that traveled across Australia for much of his early childhood and adolescence.
As a young adult, Emmanuel played in bands and on tours that included the likes of John Denver, Eric Clapton, Michael Bolton, John Farnham, Tina Turner and perhaps his greatest musical hero, country western legend Chet Atkins.
He’s recorded nearly 30 studio albums, was inducted into the Australian Country Music Roll of Renown, and recently won a Grammy for Best Instrumental Arrangement. Emmanuel now resides in Nashville, Tennessee after becoming a U.S Citizen.
Over the course of his career, Tommy Emmanuel has developed a unique style of fingerpicking guitar that blends pop, folk, country, jazz and classical into his own compositions and arrangements.
He’s currently on tour for his latest album, Living in the Light, and has a stop at the historic Crest Theatre in Sacramento. Excellence in Jazz host Avery Jeffry recently sat down with Emmanuel to discuss his storied career and his new music.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
On getting started
My mother gave me a little guitar for my 4th birthday and showed me how to play chords and how a song worked because she was learning Hawaiian music in those days. I became her rhythm guitar player and that's really how I started. Of course, my brothers and my sister all took up instruments and we all played together. So I started out in a family band and I was the youngest.
By the time I was 6 years old, I was already playing shows with my family. We were getting on radio and getting on TV and we just took off like crazy when we were kids. I think the first place we played was the local town hall. We were part of a battle of the bands. We won and we were the youngest on the show but we played music that was really popular on the radio in those days. Everybody went nuts when we played these songs that they all knew, you know.
On first hearing and eventually meeting Chet Atkins
It wasn't until I grew up and got into my mid-twenties that I discovered jazz and classical music and stuff like that. Up until then, I was just playing rock and roll music and country music. I heard Chet Atkins on the radio and it was like a lightning bolt hit me. I said, “I don't know what he's doing, but I know that that's what I have to do. I want to do that.” And most people said, “oh, it's a recording trick, you know, you can't really do all that.” But I could hear it. I could hear that he was playing that bass part and playing the chords and the melody on top. And I started to figure it out, I ended up figuring it out anyway.
I wrote him a fan letter when I was 11 years old. And I put on the envelope, Chet Atkins, Nashville, America and I sent it and he got it. He wrote back to me and we stayed sort of pen pals over the years. I got invited to come to meet him and he gave me the phone number of his office. When I got to Nashville the first time in 1980, I called and he answered. I said, “I'm just down the road at the Holiday Inn.” And he said, “come on down. I'll see you now.” We got together and played. We just fit together like that. It was beautiful and we became instant like family, you know, and we were like that all the way until he was gone.
On learning by ear without written music
I did try to learn when I was about 25. It just wouldn't sink in for me and the teacher that I went to said, “look, you're never going to be able to read what you can already play so why don't you just keep going?” So I did.
On getting into jazz
The best thing that happened to me was hearing Wes Montgomery. I heard jazz that I connected to, how tasty his playing was and his choice of notes over chords and stuff. And then I got into Sinatra's time with the Count Basie Big Band and oh, man, I love that music and those arrangements. I really listened to everything, you know, I went through a period of listening to John Coltrane and Charlie Parker and Miles Davis and all that kind of stuff. (But really, I think the two guys that really set me on fire about jazz were Wes Montgomery and George Benson.
When I do a show like the Opry in Nashville, there's always a lot of jamming. Most bluegrass guys know some jazz standards. Most of them know how to play I'll See You In My Dreams or Misty or Caravan, because they're great songs, but they're fun to play.
On doing a one man show
I love the fact that it's just me and the audience. I try to cover everything, you know, like I try to get the right songs in the right order and make the show have dynamics and peaks and valleys and that kind of thing. But being a solo player is a great challenge. You go out there on your own and try to hold an audience for an hour and a half, it's going to kill you, you know, so you've got to have the songs, you've got to have the energy, the belief in what you're doing.
On his newest album
Most of the songs came along last year and I put it all together. I got the title, Living in the Light, from an old friend of mine. We were doing an early morning walk, we were walking along the Cumberland River in Nashville, and he turned to me and he said, “brother, you look so well.” He said, “you must be living in the light.” And I said, “wow, what a great title.” That's where I got the idea for that from. And that's kind of like how I work. I draw from life around me, things that are happening, people I meet, stuff that I see. I draw on that and put it into music.
