Tommy Emmanuel

One of six children, Emmanuel 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 seven in 1961 he heard Chet Atkins playing on the radio. He vividly remembers this moment and says it greatly inspired him.^[3]

By the age of six, in 1961, he was a working professional musician. Recognizing the musical talents of Emmanuel and his older brother, Phil, their father created a family band, sold the 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, playing rhythm guitar, and rarely going to school. Eventually the New South Wales Department of Education insisted that the Emmanuel children had to go to school regularly.^[3][4]

After his 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.^[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.

In 1994, Australian music veteran John Farnham invited him to play guitar next to Stuart Fraser from Noiseworks for the Concert for Rwanda. Emmanuel had previously been a member of Farnham’s band during the early 1980s and featured on the album Uncovered, and rejoined after the 1994 concert.

Read more about Tommy here: Wikipedia