“Music is not made to be forced. It’s gotta come through you. It’s easy to play a whole bunch of notes, and play fast, and be impressive. But it’s all about emotion. You gotta tap into the emotion of music.”
Legendary guitar virtuoso Tommy Emmanuel is here, talking all things guitar and all things music. This is a tough, unusual time for musicians of all walks of life. In this period, when instead of live concerts all around the world and constant touring, Facebook and other social media live streams are filling the void. What keeps the music going? Daniel also gets Tommy to talk about some of the basics of music as he sees it. What IS an arrangement, and what makes a good arrangement? Why are some songs—maybe all really great music, period—timeless? What is it about a good, simple melody that has such power over the listener? This episode, with one of the world’s master instrumentalists, offers great musical and personal insights. And Tommy even has a surprise for us!
Tommy Emmanuel is one of the most distinguished and beloved guitarists in the world. One of six children, Tommy 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. At the age of six in 1961, he heard Chet Atkins playing on the radio. He vividly remembers that moment and said it greatly inspired him. After their father died in 1966, the Emmanuels 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. During the early 1980s, he joined the reformed lineup of leading 1970s rock group Dragon, touring widely with it, including a 1987 tour with Tina Turner; he left the group to embark on a solo career. 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 June 2010, Emmanuel was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM). In 2012, Governor Steve Beshear awarded Emmanuel the state of Kentucky's honorific title of Kentucky Colonel.
