ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON MAY 5, 1994
By Steve Newton
When I was in my early 20s, I made what for me was a major investment. I bought a near-new, shiny black Fender Stratocaster. The fact that I couldn’t even play guitar at the time didn’t matter; I figured anything that cool-looking had to sound good, even in my untrained hands.
I was wrong, though.
My cherished Strat hibernated in its case until I happened to make friends with a couple of Chilliwack guitar teachers. Scotty, a bassist-vocalist who taught at a local music store and played in a wedding band on weekends; and Smokin’ Joe, a pedal steel/mandolin/harmonica player who taught at his home and played in a touring country-rock act.
Between the two of them, they got me learning barre chords and blues scales, and before long I was a master of tricky progressions like the one in Tom Petty‘s “Breakdown”. I had lucked out by coming across musicians who truly enjoyed spreading their knowledge around.
As a kid growing up in Australia, Tommy Emmanuel didn’t get the same fortunate treatment.
“The old guys out in the country were a bit strange about me, because I was this kind of wonder kid,” says Emmanuel, calling from New York en route to Vancouver and three Music West appearances. “I’d ask, ‘Well, how does that go?’ and they’d say, ‘You’ll have to figure that out. I don’t want to show you because these are my licks.’ That was their attitude; it was very strange.”
The reticence young Emmanuel encountered from his fellow players didn’t dissuade him, though, for he has gone on to become the king of guitar Down Under, and a five-time winner of Australia’s best-guitarist award, with multi-platinum album sales and the biggest-selling instructional guitar video in the country.
As well as playing with Ali Farka Toure and Ben Harper at the Vogue on Thursday (May 12), he’ll be happily unloading his own secrets at the Vancouver Trade and Convention Centre on Saturday (May 14) at 1:30 p.m. (Prior to his workshop, also at the VTCC, Emmanuel will take part in a noon panel discussion titled “Who’s Zooming Who: Artists Dealing with Managers”.)
“I’ve done [workshops] for years in Australia,” says Emmanuel. “I’m kind of a streetman’s player in that I don’t read music, so I teach people the things that work for me, as in the way to get an arrangement together and things to be aware of, like your groove, your time, your tone, and touch–all those things that we like about players.”
Emmanuel’s latest recording, The Journey, features guest solos by the likes of Joe Walsh, Dixie Dregs violinist Jerry Goodman, and his childhood hero, Chet Atkins, who Emmanuel first corresponded with while in his mid-teens. Atkins originally invited Emmanuel over to the States after hearing a tape of him in the ’70s.
“I made a trip to Nashville in 1980,” recalls Emmanuel, “and I had the most wonderful time playing with Chet and Lenny Breau that day. We played all afternoon, and then Lenny was playing in Nashville that night, so I took him to his gig and kinda looked after him. And then when I came back [to the U.S.] last year to make The Journey, I gave Chet a call and said, ‘I’m making an album,’ and he just said, ‘Well, would you like me to play on a track?’. It was great.”
If The Journey wins yet another award for Emmanuel, it won’t be because of its big-name guests or his stature as a guitar god so much as for its wealth of world-class tunes.
“Apart from the performance, the strength of the songs is really what allowed me to make my mark as an instrumentalist,” says Emmanuel. “I’m not out to prove I’m the world’s greatest guitar player. I just love playing songs and I love playing music for people, and that’s it.”
To hear the full audio of my 1994 interview with Tommy Emmanuel subscribe to my Patreon page, where you can eavesdrop on over 350 of my uncut, one-on-one conversations with:
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Ian Gillan of Deep Purple, 2006
Joss Stone, 2012
Glenn Tipton of Judas Priest, 2005
Jack Blades of Night Ranger, 1984
Vivian Campbell of Def Leppard, 1992
Colin James, 1995
Kim Simmonds of Savoy Brown, 1998
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Tom Wilson of Junkhouse, 1995
Mike McCready of Pearl Jam, 2003
David Lindley, 2002
Marty Friedman of Megadeth, 1991
John Hiatt, 2010
Nancy Wilson of Heart, 2006
Jeff Golub, 1989
Moe Berg of the Pursuit of Happiness, 1990
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Steve Earle, 1987
Gabby Gaborno of the Cadillac Tramps, 1991
Terry Bozzio, 2003
Roger Glover, 1985
Matthew Sweet, 1995
Jim McCarty of the Yardbirds, 2003
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Steve Hackett from Genesis, 1993
Grace Potter, 2008
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Don Wilson of the Ventures, 1997
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Billy Idol, 1984
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Joey Belladonna of Anthrax, 1991
Joe Satriani, 1990
Vernon Reid of Living Colour, 1988
Brad Delp of Boston, 1988
Zakk Wylde of Pride & Glory, 1994
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Lars Ulrich of Metallica, 1985
John Doe, 1990
Shannon Hoon of Blind Melon, 1992
Myles Goodwyn of April Wine, 2001
John Mellencamp, 1999
Mike Campbell of Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, 1999
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Dickey Betts of the Allman Brothers, 1992
Randy Bachman, 2001
Little Steven, 1987
Stevie Salas, 1990
J.J. Cale, 2009
Joe Bonamassa, 2011
Tommy Emmanuel, 1994
Rob Baker of the Tragically Hip, 1997
John Petrucci of Dream Theater, 2010
Eric Johnson, 2001
Stu Hamm, 1991
Gene Simmons of Kiss, 1992
Ace Frehley from Kiss, 2008
David Lee Roth, 1994
Allan Holdsworth, 1983
John Mayall of the Bluesbreakers, 1988
Steve Vai, 1990
Tony Iommi of Heaven and Hell, 2007
Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, 1996
Geoff Tate of Queensryche, 1991
James Hetfield of Metallica, 1986
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Rick Richards of the Georgia Satellites, 1988
Andy McCoy and Sam Yaffa of Hanoi Rocks, 1984
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Rickey Medlocke of Lynyrd Skynyrd, 1997
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Bill Henderson of Chilliwack, 1999
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Mark Farner of Grand Funk, 1991
Chris Robinson of Black Crowes, 1990
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Mike Fraser, 2014
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Lemmy Kilmister of Motorhead, 2002
David Gogo, 1991
Booker T. Jones, 2016
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James Reyne from Australian Crawl, 1988
Mike Rutherford of Genesis, 1983
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Mike Cooley of the Drive-By Truckers, 2016
Gary Rossington of Lynyrd Skynyrd, 1986
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Buddy Miles, 2001
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Tom Hamilton of Aerosmith, 1983
Gaye Delorme, 1990
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Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac, 2016
Doc Neeson of Angel City, 1985
Rik Emmett of Triumph, 1985
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Tosin Abasi of Animals as Leaders, 2016
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Peter Frampton, 1987
Otis Rush, 1997
Gord Downie of the Tragically Hip, 1989
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Steve Clark of Def Leppard, 1988
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Ann Wilson of Heart, 1985
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….with hundreds more to come