Tommy Emmanuel
The Aussie guita r legend has captivated audiences for decades with no gimmicks or fancy equipment. Here’s how he did it...
“You can’t separate me from my music. The two of us are one,” says veteran Australian guitarist Tommy Emmanuel. Throughout a career spanning over five decades (he joined his family’s band on the road while still a child) he’s kept to the mantra of keeping things simple; with no on-stage persona, gimmicks or PR stunts. It’s just him and a guitar, and that’s how it’s always been.
“The bottom line is, you’ve gotta have good songs. You could have all the ability in the world and a bunch of mediocre songs – nobody’s gonna care,” he says. His early role models, Chet Atkins and Hank Marvin, taught him the power of an effective arrangement, and Tommy has spent his career using nothing more complex than a good melody and some inventive finger work to capture audiences.
“By 1978, my style was pretty there. In the last 30 years or so, I really developed a way of writing and performing that was unique to me,” he explains. His dedication to the craft of virtuoso guitar work led to tours with John Farnham and Tina Turner, a Grammy award for his song Gameshow Rag/Cannonball Rag, and a spot performing at the Olympics in 2000 in Sydney, all without cultivating any kind of rock star image.
“You have to evolve into the artist you’re meant to be. I’ve begged, stolen and borrowed from so many people. I watched comedians and observed their timing, how they spoke to the audience, all that was very important training to me. You’ve gotta think outside the box all the time.”
As for his technique, it’s always about engaging listeners. “Playing a good melody with groove and feeling is what I’m trying to achieve every time I play. You don’t need words to play good music,” he asserts. “If you wanna point something to Chet Atkins, I think he taught me what a good song was, and what a good arrangement was. Keep your arrangements interesting, find a good key.”
Simplicity, though, doesn’t mean always working alone, as the long list of collaborations under Tommy’s belt attest to. For his latest record, Accomplice One, he’s roped in an impressive list of names including Jason Isbell, Mark Knopfler, Suzy Bogguss, Amanda Shires and Ricky Skaggs to duet with him on an album of covers and originals.
“It was a two-year project, I had to fit it in between touring and into other people’s schedules as well. My management did an amazing job of getting people in where we could,” he says.
It’s here that his talent for arrangement really comes into play, and he’s particularly proud of his reworking of the Otis Redding classic (Sittin’ On) The Dock Of A Bay.
“First of all, I find the key that really suits us for singing, and sing the song down as we know it, and then see if we want to make any changes,” he says. “I did make one small change in the arrangement of it, and everyone who hears it goes, ‘What a cool idea.’ It’s at the end of the chorus, instead of just going straight into ‘wasting time’, we did this little chordal ‘dun dun dun’ and added an extra bar to it.” He doesn’t shy away from reworking non-guitar tracks, either: “Amanda Shires, who’s a real up-and-coming Americana artist here, did a really flashed-up version of Madonna’s
Borderline, and made it into like an old r’n’b groove and it really works well.”
It’ll come as no surprise that Tommy’s gear is as uncomplicated as his attitude to music. “The guitars that I use on tour are Australian-made guitars called Maton,” he says. “I plug those into the AER amp, which is a fabulous acoustic amp made in Germany, and that’s pretty much my sound. I have a soundman who does a great job for me; I don’t need mountains of pedals and equipment. On stage I have one pedal and it’s a tuner!” His approach in the studio is similar.
You Don’t Want To Get One Of Those, his duet with Mark Knopfler, was recorded live, with the pair singing and playing together to two mics. “I make it as pure as possible,” he says. “I’m just presenting myself; I’m not presenting a version or a character of myself.”
And, just as the young Tommy reached out to Chet Atkins for advice as a youngster, aspiring guitarists also look to Tommy as a role model. “The world is so full of enthusiastic young people who want to play guitar. More guitars, less guns, I say!” he laughs. “I want to make a trail for the younger generation to learn from and follow.”