Tommy Emmanuel

Emmanuel performing at the Soave Guitar Festival, Italy, May 2010
Background information
Born (1955-05-31) 31 May 1955 (age 57)
Muswellbrook, New South Wales, Australia
Genres Folk, Rock, Pop, Blues, Country
Occupations Musician, Songwriter
Instruments Guitar, lap steel guitar
Years active 1962–present
Associated acts Dragon
Website Official website
Notable instruments
Maton TE Signature model, Williamson Guitars

William Thomas "Tommy" Emmanuel AM (born 31 May 1955) is an Australian guitarist and occasional singer, best known for his complex fingerstyle technique, energetic performances and the use of percussive effects on the guitar. In the May 2008 and 2010 issues of Guitar Player Magazine, he was named as "Best Acoustic Guitarist" in their readers' poll.[1] In June 2010 Emmanuel was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM).[2]

Contents

Biography [link]

Emmanuel was born in Australia in 1955. He received his first guitar in 1959 at age four, being taught by his mother to accompany her playing lap steel guitar. At the age of 7 he heard Chet Atkins on the radio. He vividly remembers this moment and says it greatly inspired him.[3]

By the age of 6, in 1961, he was a working professional musician. Recognizing the musical talents of Tommy and his brother Phil, their father created a family band, sold the family 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 with his family, playing rhythm guitar, and rarely going to school. The family found it difficult living on the road; they were poor but never hungry, never settling in one place. His father would often drive ahead, organize interviews, advertising and finding the local music shop where they'd have an impromptu concert the next day. Eventually the New South Wales Department of Education insisted that the Emmanuel children needed to go to school regularly.[3][4]

After his father died in 1966, the family settled in Parkes. Tommy eventually moved to Sydney where he came to be noticed nationally when he won a string of talent contests in his teen years.[3][5] By the late 1970s, he was playing drums with his brother Phil in the group Goldrush as well 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. During the early 1980s, he joined the reformed lineup of leading 1970s rock group Dragon, touring widely with them, including a 1987 tour with Tina Turner. He left the group to embark on a solo career.

Throughout his career he has played with many notable artists including Chet Atkins, Eric Clapton, Sir George Martin, Air Supply, John Denver, Les Paul and Doc Watson.

In 1994 Australian music veteran John Farnham invited him to play guitar next to Stuart Fraser from Noiseworks for the Concert For Rwanda. Emmanuel became a member of Farnham's band.

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.[5] When performing together the pair will sometimes share and play just one guitar with each having one hand free.

In October 2002 he was invited to perform the Australian folk song Waltzing Matilda at a service at the Washington National Cathedral held for the victims of the Bali bombings.

In December 2007 he was diagnosed with heart issues[6] 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 late January 2010, having been deeply touched by the tragic 2010 Haiti earthquake earlier in the same month, Emmanuel announced[7] that he would be auctioning off three guitars, that he personally played and owned, on eBay, in order to raise money to donate to UNICEF in Haiti.

In June 2010 Emmanuel was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM).[2]

Musical style [link]

Emmanuel's fingerstyle technique shown at a June 2006 performance at the City Stages venue in Birmingham, Alabama

Emmanuel has said that even at a young age he was fascinated by Atkins’ musical style – sometimes referred to as Travis picking – of playing bass with the thumb and melody parts with the first two or three fingers at the same time. This technique became the basis of Tommy's guitar style.

While Emmanuel has never had formal music training, his playing ability has won him fans from all over the world. He is known to play percussion parts on the body of his guitar. As a solo performer he never plays to a set list and uses a minimum of effects.[5] He usually completes recordings in one take.

Emmanuel frequently uses his left thumb to fret bass notes on the 5th and 6th strings as well as playing chords such as Am and E with just two fingers. He uses a thumb pick mostly, a flat pick or just fingers. He also integrates amongst his trademark blazing runs and kaleidoscopic chord progressions a quick note / chord "dive," imitating a tremolo system effect on his fixed-bridge acoustic guitars, by pressing the palm of his right hand against the body of the guitar directly above the fret board close to the neck joint while maintaining forward pressure with his left (fretting) hand.

His main guitar is a small-bodied custom Maton EBG808 made in 2003, that is fitted with a pickup and an internal condenser microphone, to which he has given the nickname "Mouse" due to its quieter volume unplugged but massive sound when plugged into an amp. Two of his main stage guitars, notably his signature TE1 Maton dreadnought, are battered and worn due to his excessive playing and percussive techniques.

Association with Chet Atkins [link]

As a young man in Australia, Emmanuel wrote to his hero Chet Atkins in Nashville. Eventually Atkins replied with words of encouragement and a longstanding invitation to drop by to visit.[8]

In 1997, Emmanuel and Atkins recorded as a duo and released the album The Day Finger Pickers Took Over The World, which was also to be Atkins' last recorded album before he died. Emmanuel and Atkins appeared together on The Nashville Network's 'County Christmas' in late 1997 and on that occasion Atkins stated about him: "He is one of the greatest guitar players I've ever seen."

In July 1999, at the 15th Annual Chet Atkins Appreciation Society Convention, Chet presented Tommy with a Certified Guitar Player award, an honor Atkins has bestowed on other guitarists.[3] This award gains its fame from being bestowed by Atkins himself, a widely recognized leader in guitar music. The award states: "In Recognition Of His Contributions to the Art Of Fingerpicking." Tommy performs at the Chet Atkins Appreciation Society (CAAS) in July each year in Nashville.[9]

Discography [link]

Emmanuel released the DVD "Live At Her Majesty's Theatre, Ballarat, Australia" on 11 July 2006 and also the "Center Stage" accompanying DVD in late 2008.

Emmanuel has produced 3 instructional videos: Guitar Talk (1993), Up Close (1996), Emmanuel Labor (2008)

Awards [link]

"Smokey Mountain Lullaby", a duet with Chet Atkins, was nominated for the 1998 Grammy award for Country Instrumental Performance but did not win. His song "Gameshow Rag/Cannonball Rag" won "Instrumental of the Year" at the 35th Tamworth Country Music Festival on Saturday, 27 January 2007,[11] and also was nominated that year for a Grammy for "Best Country Instrumental Performance".[12]

References [link]

External links [link]


https://wn.com/Tommy_Emmanuel

Mystery

Mystery, The Mystery, mysteries, The Mysteries, or mysterious may refer to: Something that cannot be explained or comprehended. Any action, affair, or event so obscure or concealed as to arouse suspense, curiosity, or fear is a mystery.

Places

  • The Mystery, Wavertree Playground of England
  • People

  • Mystery (pickup artist) (born 1971), stage name of entertainer Erik Von Markovik
  • Religion and Ancient Culture

  • Greco-Roman mysteries, ancient religious cults whose rituals were not revealed to outsiders; the most famous were the Eleusinian Mysteries
  • Mystery play, such as the Passion play
  • Sacred mysteries, beliefs which cannot be explained by normal reasoning, or esoteric teachings which are kept secret from the non-initiated
  • Vessels

  • Mystery (log canoe), a Chesapeake Bay log canoe
  • Mystery (lugger), a Mount's Bay lugger which made a voyage from Cornwall to Australia in 1855
  • Spirit of Mystery, a modern recreation of Mystery
  • USS Mystery, the name of more than one proposed or actual United States Navy ships
  • The Mystery (album)

    The Mystery is a Grammy nominated album by Australian guitarist Tommy Emmanuel, released in 2006.

    Track listing

    All songs by Tommy Emmanuel unless otherwise noted.

  • "Cantina Senese” – 1:53
  • "Gameshow Rag/Cannonball Rag" (Emmanuel, Merle Travis) – 2:26
  • "The Mystery " – 3:57
  • "Cowboy's Dream" – 3:27
  • "Walls" (Kennedy, Rose, Sharp) – 3:40
  • "Lewis & Clark" – 4:05
  • "The Diggers' Waltz" – 3:31
  • "Antonella's Birthday" – 2:46
  • "And So It Goes" (Joel) – 3:21
  • "That's The Spirit" – 2:13
  • "Footprints" – 4:03
  • "Keep It Simple" – 3:39
  • Personnel

  • Tommy Emmanuel - guitar, vocals
  • Elizabeth Watkins - vocals
  • Pamela Rose - harmony vocals
  • Production

  • Produced by Kim Person
  • Engineered by Kim Person
  • Mastered by David Glasser
  • References

    Podcasts:

    Tommy Emmanuel

    ALBUMS

    developed with YouTube
    PLAYLIST TIME:

    Walls

    by: Tommy Emmanuel

    G C9 D G
    Some walls are made of stone
    Sometimes we build our own
    Some walls stand for years
    Some wash away with tears
    Some walls are lined with gold where
    Some hearts stay safe and cold
    Some walls are made of doubt
    Holding in and keeping out
    Chorus:
    Em D G
    If there is any hope for love at all
    Em C9 D G
    Some walls must fall
    Some walls are build on pride
    Some keep the child inside
    Some walls are build in fear that
    Love let go will disappear
    Chorus:
    Em D G
    If there is any hope for love at all
    Em C9 D G
    Some walls must fall
    Bridge:
    Em G
    How will you ever know what might be found
    Em C9 D
    Until you let the walls come tumbling down
    Chorus:
    If there is any hope for love at all




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