tommy emmanuel - wikipedia

Tommy Emmanuel

Emmanuel performing at the Soave Guitar

Festival, Italy, May 2010

Background information

Born 31 May 1955

Muswellbrook, New South

Wales, Australia

Genres Folk, country, blues, rock, pop,

jazz, Ragtime,

Occupations Musician, songwriter

Instruments Guitar, lap steel guitar, drums

Associated

acts

Dragon

Website http://www.tommyemmanuel.com

Notable instruments

Maton TE Signature model

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

William Thomas "Tommy" Emmanuel AM (born31 May 1955) is an Australian virtuoso guitarist andoccasional singer, best known for his complexfingerstyle technique, energetic performances andthe use of percussive effects on the guitar. In theMay 2008 and 2010 issues of Guitar PlayerMagazine, he was named as "Best Acoustic

Guitarist" in their readers' poll.[1] In June 2010Emmanuel was appointed a Member of the Order of

Australia (AM).[2]

1 Biography2 Musical style3 Association with Chet Atkins4 Discography5 Awards6 References7 External links

Emmanuel was born in Australia in 1955. Hereceived his first guitar in 1959 at age four, beingtaught by his mother to accompany her playing lapsteel guitar. At the age of 7 he heard Chet Atkins onthe radio. He vividly remembers this moment and

says it greatly inspired him.[3]

By the age of 6, in 1961, he was a workingprofessional musician. Recognizing the musicaltalents of Tommy and his brother Phil, their fathercreated a family band, sold the family home andtook his family on the road. With the family living in two station wagons, much of Emmanuel’schildhood was spent touring Australia with his family, playing rhythm guitar, and rarely going toschool. The family found it difficult living on the road; they were poor but never hungry, neversettling in one place. His father would often drive ahead, organize interviews, advertising andfinding the local music shop where they'd have an impromptu concert the next day. Eventuallythe 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 Sydneywhere 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

Tommy Emmanuel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia unmht://unmht/file.5/C:/Users/Vasin/Desktop/New folder (9)/Tommy ...

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doing session work on numerous albums and jingles. He gained further prominence in the late1970s as the lead guitarist in The Southern Star Band, the backing group for vocalist DougParkinson. During the early 1980s, he joined the reformed lineup of leading 1970s rock groupDragon, touring widely with them, including a 1987 tour with Tina Turner. He left the group toembark on a solo career.

Throughout his career he has played with many notable artists including Chet Atkins, EricClapton, Sir George Martin, Air Supply, John Denver, Les Paul, Edgar Cruz, Martin Taylor andDoc Watson.

In 1994 Australian music veteran John Farnham invited him to play guitar next to Stuart Fraserfrom 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 eachhaving one hand free.

In October 2002 he was invited to perform the Australian folk song Waltzing Matilda at a serviceat 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 hishectic touring schedule due to exhaustion, but returned to full-time touring in early 2008.

In late January 2010, after the 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]

Emmanuel has said that even at a young age he was fascinated by Chet Atkins’ musical style(sometimes incorrectly referred to as Travis picking) of playing bass lines, chords, melodies andharmonies simultaneously using the thumb and fingers of the right hand, achieving a dynamicrange of sound from the instrument. Although Emmanuel's playing incorporates a multitude ofmusical influences and styles, including jazz, blues, bluegrass, folk and rock, this type of countryfingerstyle playing is at the core of his technique. While Emmanuel has never had formal musictraining, and does not read or write music, his natural musical ability and intrinsic sense ofrhythm has gained him fans from all over the world. As a solo performer he never plays to a set

list and uses a minimum of effects onstage[5] and he usually completes studio recordings in onetake.

His main stage guitars which he plays on his solo shows are made by Maton. He usually travelswith two custom EBG808 TE models and one TE1 model, both of which are Tommy Emmanuel

artist signature models.[8] He has been playing Maton guitars for most of his career and issomewhat of an ambassador to the company due to his long-standing association with the

brand.[9] Emmanuel has come to be known for the battered and worn-down appearance of hisguitars. This is a result of his dynamic, energetic playing and percussive techniques; one of hissignature performances, for example, involves striking the whole body of the guitar in variousplaces with his hands or a drummer's snare-drum brush to emulate the sound of an entirepercussion kit.


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Emmanuel's fingerstyle technique

shown at a June 2006

performance at the City Stages

venue in Birmingham, Alabama,

USA.

Emmanuel usually keeps one EBG808 in standard guitartuning (E-A-D-G-B-E), while he tunes his second EBG808 toD-G-D-G-B-E (G6 tuning) and his TE1 to C♯-F♯-B-E-G♯-C♯.He generally uses 0.12 gauge (light) strings on one EBG808and 0.13 gauge (medium) strings on the second EBG808 andon the TE1. This allows him to quickly change tuning byswapping between guitars during a show if needed, ratherthan spending time onstage re-tuning one guitar.

Emmanuel can often be seen curling his left-hand thumbaround the neck of the guitar onto the fretboard to play certainnotes rather than using only his fingers to play, contrary tohow a classical guitarist would play. He frequently playscommon three-finger chord shapes with just two fingers. Hecommonly uses a thumbpick, a flat pick (plectrum), his fingersor a combination of these in his playing, a style known ashybrid picking. Amongst his trademark rapid virtuosic licksand cascading harmonic progressions, he can also often beseen using a technique which imitates an electric guitar'stremolo-system on his acoustic guitars; by pressing the palmof his right hand against the sound board of the guitar nearthe neck joint, while maintaining forward pressure with his lefthand on the top of the headstock, the guitar neck slightlybends away from the body and consequently affects the pitch of the strings to achieve thedesired sound.

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

visit.[10]

In 1997, Emmanuel and Atkins recorded as a duo and released the album The Day FingerPickers 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 late1997 and on that occasion Atkins stated about him: "He is one of the greatest guitar players I'veever seen."

In July 1999, at the 15th Annual Chet Atkins Appreciation Society Convention,[11] Atkinspresented Emmanuel with a Certified Guitar Player award, an honor Chet personally bestowed to

only four guitarists.[3] This award gains its fame from being bestowed by Atkins himself, a widelyrecognized leader in guitar music. The award states: "In Recognition Of His Contributions to theArt Of Fingerpicking." Tommy performs at the Chet Atkins Appreciation Society (CAAS) in July

each year in Nashville.[12]

1979 From Out Of Nowhere1987 Up From Down Under1990 Dare to Be Different1992 Determination


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1993 The Journey1993 The Journey Continues1995 Initiation1995 Terra Firma (with Phil Emmanuel)1995 Classical Gas1996 Can't Get Enough1997 Midnight Drive (US release of Can't Get Enough)1997 The Day Finger Pickers Took Over The World (With Chet Atkins)

1998 Collaboration2000 Only2001 Greatest Hits2004 Endless Road2005 Live One2006 Happy Hour (with Jim Nichols)2006 The Mystery2008 Center Stage2009 Just Between Frets (with Frank Vignola)2010 Little by Little2010 Tommy Emmanuel Essential 3.0

2011 All I Want For Christmas[13]

2013 The Colonel and The Governor (with Martin Taylor)[14]

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

Emmanuel has produced several instructional videos: Guitar Talk (1993), Up Close (1996),Emmanuel Labor (2008), Certified Gems (2012)

"Smokey Mountain Lullaby", a duet with Chet Atkins, was nominated for the 1998 Grammy awardfor Country Instrumental Performance but did not win. His song "Gameshow Rag/CannonballRag" won "Instrumental of the Year" at the 35th Tamworth Country Music Festival on Saturday, 27

January 2007,[15] and also was nominated that year for a Grammy for "Best Country Instrumental

Performance".[16]

^ "Bio: Tommy Emmanuel" (http://www.tommyemmanuel.com/bio/), official website1.^ a b "It's an Honour - Honours - Search Australian Honours" (http://www.itsanhonour.gov.au/honours/honour_roll/search.cfm?aus_award_id=1142663&search_type=simple&showInd=true).Itsanhonour.gov.au. 2010-06-14. Retrieved 2013-03-17.

2.

^ a b c d "The Official Tommy Emmanuel Web Site - Interview" (http://users.adam.com.au/donald/markinter.htm). Users.adam.com.au. 1997-04-19. Retrieved 2013-03-17.

3.

^ "Tommy Emmanuel: c.g.p" (http://www.countrymusiconline.net/tommyemmanuel.html).Countrymusiconline.net. Retrieved 2013-03-17.

4.

^ a b c "Tommy Emmanuel Interview" (http://www.musicfrisk.com/picture/interview/tommy.emmanuel.fingerstyle.02.14.2003.php). Music Frisk. 2003-02-14. Retrieved 2013-03-17.

5.

^ [1] (http://break-hollywood.blogspot.com/2007/12/oz-music-legend-tommy-emmanuel-falls.html)6.^ "Tommy Emmanuel's plea for his guitar auction" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4o6rtxYMeM).YouTube. 2010-01-24. Retrieved 2013-03-17.

7.

^ "TE Series | Maton Guitars Australia" (http://maton.com.au/product/te-series)8.


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^ "Tommy Emmanuel | Maton Guitars Australia" (http://www.maton.com.au/artists/tommy-emmanuel)9.^ "Just Jazz Guitar Online - Tommy Emmanuel Interview" (http://justjazzguitar.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=329&Itemid=52). Justjazzguitar.com. Retrieved2013-03-17.

10.

^ "The Chet Atkins Appreciation Society" (http://www.misterguitar.com/caas/index.html).Misterguitar.com. 1997-12-21. Retrieved 2013-03-17.

11.

^ [2] (http://www.modernguitars.com/archives/002881.html)12.^ Bman (15 November 2011). "All I Want For Christmas - Tommy Emmanuel"(http://www.bmansbluesreport.com/2011/11/all-i-want-for-christmas-tommy-emmanuel.html). Retrieved28 February 2013.

13.

^ "The Colonel & The Governor" (http://www.certifiedguitarplayer.com/thecolonelandthegovernor.aspx).CPR Entertainment. Retrieved 28 February 2013.

14.

^ [3] (http://www.tamworthcountrymusic.com.au/index.cfm?page_id=1203)15.^ "2007 Grammy Nominees in Country Music" (http://countrymusic.about.com/od/awards/a/grammynom07_2.htm). Countrymusic.about.com. 2012-04-10. Retrieved 2013-03-17.

16.

TommyEmmanuel.com (http://www.tommyemmanuel.com)TommyEmmanuel.TV (http://www.tommyemmanuel.tv)Russian fan site (http://www.tommyemmanuel.ru)Tommy Emmanuel page on The Party Of The Century project (http://potc.giorgiosound.com/index.php?page=tommy%20emmanuel)2011 Tommy Emmanuel Interview on FingerstyleGuitarists.com(http://www.fingerstyleguitarists.com/news/26-nine-questions-with-Tommy-Emmanuel-Interview)Emmanuel playing "Over the Rainbow" on WGN (http://www.wgnradio.com/videobeta/221a1180-7861-4a2d-8127-056f66a8e096/Entertainment/Tommy-Emmanuel-Somewhere-Over-the-RainbowEntertainment/)Tom Redmond - Working with Chet Atkins: An Interview with Tommy Emmanuel(http://www.misterguitar.us/news/tommye.html)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tommy_Emmanuel&oldid=600095852"Categories: ARIA Award winners Australian guitarists Australian jazz guitaristsFingerstyle guitarists 1955 births Living people People from the Hunter RegionMembers of the Order of Australia Acoustic guitarists Musicians from New South Wales20th-century Australian musicians 21st-century Australian musicians

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