17 Facts About Tommy Emmanuel

William Thomas Emmanuel was born on 31 May 1955 and is an Australian guitarist.

In June 2010, Tommy Emmanuel was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia ; in 2011, he was inducted into the Australian Roll of Renown.

One of six children, Tommy Emmanuel was born in Muswellbrook, New South Wales, Australia, in 1955.

Tommy Emmanuel received his first guitar in 1959 at age four and was taught by his mother to accompany her playing lap steel guitar.

Tommy Emmanuel vividly remembers that moment and said it greatly inspired him as a musician.

Tommy Emmanuel would go on to record a number of Buddy Williams albums in the early 1970s.

The family settled in Parkes, New South Wales after the New South Wales Department of Education insisted that the Tommy Emmanuel children had to go to school regularly.

Tommy Emmanuel gained further prominence in the late 1970s as the lead guitarist in the Southern Star Band, the backing group for vocalist Doug Parkinson.

Tommy 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.

In June 2010, Tommy Emmanuel was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia.

Tommy Emmanuel had said that even at a young age he was fascinated by Chet Atkins's musical style of playing bass lines, chords, melodies, and harmonies simultaneously using the thumb and fingers of the right hand, achieving a dynamic range of sound from the instrument.

Tommy Emmanuel has played Maton guitars for most of his career and is somewhat of an ambassador for the company due to his long-standing association with the brand.

Tommy Emmanuel is known for the battered and worn-down appearances of his guitars; a result of his dynamic, energetic playing and percussive techniques.

Tommy Emmanuel usually keeps one Maton EBG808 in standard guitar tuning, while he tunes his second Maton EBG808 to D-G-D-G-B-E and his TE1 to C-F-B-E-G-C.

Tommy Emmanuel generally uses 0.12 gauge strings on one EBG808 and 0.13 gauge strings on the second Maton EBG808 and on the TE1.

Tommy Emmanuel frequently plays common three-finger chord shapes with just two fingers.

Tommy Emmanuel commonly uses a thumbpick, a flat pick, his fingers, or a combination of these in his playing, a style known as hybrid picking.