Tommy Emmanuel

William Thomas Emmanuel (born 31 May 1955) is an Australian guitarist.

Originally a session player in many bands, he has released many award-winning recordings as a solo artist.

One of six children, Emmanuel was born in Muswellbrook, New South Wales, Australia, in 1955.

He received his first guitar in 1959 at age four and was taught by his mother to accompany her playing lap steel guitar.

In 1961, at the age of six, he heard Chet Atkins playing on the radio.

He vividly remembers that moment and said it greatly inspired him as a musician.

By the age of six, he was a working professional musician.

Recognizing the musical talents of Emmanuel and his older brother, Phil, their father created a family band, sold their home, and took his family on the road.

With the family living in two station wagons, much of Emmanuel's childhood was spent touring Australia, playing rhythm guitar, and rarely going to school.

After their father died in 1966, Australian Country Music star Buddy Williams approached the family and asked permission to take the Emmanuel brothers on the road with his touring show travelling around Australia.

Tommy Emmanuel would go on to record a number of Buddy Williams albums in the early 1970s.

Eventually, the New South Wales Department of Education insisted that the Emmanuel children had to go to school regularly.

The Emmanuels eventually settled in Parkes.

Tommy Emmanuel eventually moved to Sydney, where he was noticed nationally when he won a string of talent contests in his teen years.

By the late 1970s, he was playing drums with his brother Phil in the group Goldrush as well as doing session work on numerous albums and jingles.

He gained further prominence in the late 1970s as the lead guitarist in the Southern Star Band, the backing group for vocalist Doug Parkinson.

Emmanuel had previously been a member of Farnham's band during the early 1980s and featured on the album Uncovered and rejoined after the 1994 concert.

During 1986–1988 and 1995, he joined the lineup of the leading New Zealand/Australian 1970s rock group Dragon that had reformed in 1982, touring widely with them, including a 1987 tour with Tina Turner; he left the group to embark on a solo career.

In 1994, Australian music veteran John Farnham invited him to play the guitar next to Stuart Fraser from Noiseworks for the Concert for Rwanda.

In July 1999, Chet Atkins commented that Emmanuel was a "fearless" fingerpicking guitar player and awarded Tommy and four others (John Knowles, Marcel Dadi, Jerry Reed, and Steve Wariner) the "Certified Guitar Player" title.

Emmanuel and his brother Phil performed live in Sydney at the closing ceremony of the Summer Olympics in 2000.

The event was televised worldwide with an estimated 2.85 billion viewers.

In December 2007, he was diagnosed with heart problems and was forced to take a break from his hectic touring schedule due to exhaustion but returned to full-time touring in early 2008.

In 2009 he worked with fellow local artists Ray Burgess, Marty Rhone, John St Peeters and John "Swanee" Swan to release a single, "Legends of the Southern Land".

In June 2010, Emmanuel was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM); in 2011, he was inducted into the Australian Roll of Renown.

In June 2010, Emmanuel was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM).

At the 2011 ‘TommyFest’, Tommy took the chance to talk to the audience about his strong Christian faith.

“The Lord is my shepherd, so I lack nothing—it’s true!” he told the gathered crowds.

In 2012, Governor Steve Beshear awarded Emmanuel the state of Kentucky's honorific title of Kentucky Colonel.

In 2019, he was listed by MusicRadar as the best acoustic guitarist in the world.

During a July 2019 concert he mentioned recently receiving American citizenship.

Emmanuel had said that even at a young age he was fascinated by Chet Atkins's musical style (sometimes referred to as Travis picking) of playing bass lines, chords, melodies, and harmonies simultaneously using the thumb and fingers of the right hand, achieving a dynamic range of sound from the instrument.

Although Emmanuel's playing incorporates a multitude of musical influences and styles, including jazz, blues, bluegrass, folk and rock, this type of country finger-style playing is at the core of his technique.

While Emmanuel has never had formal music training and does not read or write music, his natural musical ability, intrinsic sense of rhythm, and charisma gained him fans from all over the world.

As a solo performer, he never plays to a setlist and uses a minimum of effects onstage.

He usually completes studio recordings in one take.

In his solo shows, he mainly plays guitars made by Maton, an Australian guitar manufacturer.

He usually travels with two custom Maton EBG808 TE models and one TE1 model, both of which are Tommy Emmanuel artist signature models.

He has played Maton guitars for most of his career and is somewhat of an ambassador for the company due to his long-standing association with the brand.

Emmanuel is known for the battered and worn-down appearances of his guitars; a result of his dynamic, energetic playing and percussive techniques.