If you have never heard of Tommy Emmanuel then you haven’t been listening to music in the last 50 years – it’s not everyone who gets to sit on top of a ’ten best acoustic guitarists in the world’ list, and you can be sure he has well and truly earned that spot. Seven spoke to Tommy before he stepped onto the stage in San Francisco.
From the looks of your tour schedule you’ve got a few more shows in the US this year, then to the UK and Europe in January, then in February and for half of March you’re back in the US, then a month in Australia and New Zealand. What do you do to keep fit!?
I work! I don’t have time to go working out and doing all that kind of stuff. I mean, if I was really interested in it, I probably could, but I’m not interested. I’m more interested in taking a good walk, and I do that all the time. When I’m not resting or working or whatever, I’m walking, and I eat well. And my tour manager, who is also my sound man – a Bundaberg boy – is the same, so we never get sick!
Where is home for you at the moment?
I’m in Nashville, Tennessee – I’ve been there for 20 years yeah. It’s kind of my base. I have a UK base and an American base and I have family in both countries, and then I have the rest of my family back in Australia. So I’m a US citizen, as well as still Australian – it just seems to be the right way to go. I mean, if I could do the things that I’m doing and still live in Australia, I would, no doubt about it, but it’s just too far. You can’t just fly without it taking 20 hours or whatever.
So you still call Australia home?
Absolutely. Yeah, I always will. But, you know, America is a great place to live. And I’ve been very fortunate. I mean, no one’s taken a shot at me and everything just keeps getting better. It’s a good place to be and I can get to anywhere from here. And it’s big! There’s so many cities, I have toured five times this year in different areas – it was fantastic.
Do you find that living in Nashville there’s plenty of opportunities for collaboration or hooking up with other people?
Oh, totally. Plus, I do the Opry when I’m home and I enjoy that. There’s always recording projects going on and stuff like that. But, I like being home in Nashville because where I live is out of town and it’s very rural – I know all my neighbours – they’re all great people. My life is pretty normal off the road.
Are you living the dream?
When I was young, I just didn’t know how I was going to do it. I had no idea. And I just kept plugging away. Once I started making my own music and making my own records in Australia, I got a sense of where I could go with it. Also, I’ve never thought, ’I’m just a guitar player, what can I possibly do?’ I’ve never ever thought that way. I’ve always felt like, well, anything’s possible. I thought: ’I’ve got to write the right songs. I’ve got to give the people the best I can’, and when I quickly built an audience when I moved to Sydney, I knew I was on the right track.
My brother [Phil Emmanuel] and I worked together a lot in the early days. And that was good too. We built a following and we had a lot of work and the good thing was that we had a lot of experience. But I wanted so much more. You know? I’m a writer and a producer, and an arranger, and I had so much more that I wanted to do. The world is your oyster – take some risks.
I’ve always had a vision of where I belong. I knew I was a concert player. I knew I wanted to be on the stage all around the world. And I was not going to let anything stop me.
Do you consider yourself lucky to have had that vision?
I feel that it was nature’s way, because you can’t plan how you see things and how you think – it’s how you’re born. I think I found where I belong and what I’m supposed to be doing a long time ago – living a dream. I’ve never wanted to do anything else.
You know, the problem for this generation is they put up videos on social media – they play at home, they film themselves, but I don’t see many videos of people playing in front of an audience. They play to a camera and then try to get people’s input. That’s not going to give you the experience you need. You need to play to real people in a real place where people want to hear music and then see what you got.
What inspires you?
Life and people, people’s stories. Sometimes, a movie will give me an idea that really takes off and becomes a song – that happens quite a bit.
Do you feel that as a person with a high profile, you have some sort of responsibility or obligation to support causes or stand up for things that you believe in?
Absolutely. Absolutely I do, but I don’t get up on a soapbox. I do it in other ways because I don’t need or want any glory or any of that bullshit. I don’t want anything to do with that, however I will be willing to tell you that I charge people to meet me, like a VIP meet – they pay for a ticket upfront at the show and they meet me an hour before the show. They get a swag of photos and stuff, but that money I raise goes to Doctors Without Borders or the Red Cross and UNICEF… but I just want to say that I never get up on my soapbox unless it’s something like when I’m teaching at a famous place like Berkeley. At Berkeley College of Music someone asked me about what they should do to be famous and I said: ’You better damn well learn some good songs’ – ha ha. I’m happy to preach about that! So many people who teach music, they want you to learn the modes and scales, the blah, blah, blah and all that, and I’m like, ’No! learn some songs and all that will happen’.
Tommy, are you having enough fun?
Oh my… that’s exactly what i said on stage last night – I was talking about how I developed fingerstyle playing and I stopped playing this song. And I said to the audience, ’Wouldn’t you like to have this much fun?’ So, yes. Always. It’s absolutely a big part of my whole persona and my whole thing with the public. There are so many people out there who think this is a very serious musician and they come along to a show. And I’m like, I’m a comedian who plays a few songs because I want to have fun and I want people to have fun. That’s what entertainment is all about. Yeah, that’s fantastic!
Tommy Emmanuel is playing at Bluesfest 2024.
