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Tommy
Emmanuel
- Biography
Tommy
Emmanuel CGP
(born May 31, 1955) is an Australian virtuoso guitarist,
best known for his fine art of "fingerpicking", which is
akin to the way a pianist plays the piano, using all ten
fingers. He is considered by some as the greatest
fingerpicker in the world today. Emmanuel is a committed
Christian since beating substance abuse two decades ago.
Throughout
his career he played with many famous legends like Chet
Atkins, Eric Clapton, Sir George Martin and John Denver.
Tommy
was born in the
New South Wales
town of Muswellbrook. He began to play guitar at the age of
4 years and by the age of 6 was a working professional
musician, as much of his childhood touring Australia with
his family band, playing rhythm guitar.
In 1966
when his father died, he started to give guitar lessons at
the age of 12. He first came to be noticed nationally when
he won a string of talent contests in his teen years, and by
the late 1970s, he was playing with his brother Phil in the
group Goldrush. During the early 1980s, he joined the
reformed lineup of leading '70s rock group Dragon, touring
widely with them, including a 1987 tour with
Tina Turner,
before leaving to embark on a solo career.
While
Tommy doesn't read music and has never had formal music
training, his natural musicianship and prodigious playing
ability has won him thousands of fans from all over the
world. As well as being a guitar master, he is also a
professional percussionist, and has been known to play
percussion parts on the body of his guitar.
1994
saw Tommy as a member of the John Farnham Band. Australian
music veteran John Farnham invited him to play guitar next
to Stuart Fraser from
Noiseworks for the Concert For Rwanda.
In July
1999, at the 15th Annual Chet Atkins Appreciation Society
Convention, Chet presented Tommy with the prestigious
Certified Guitar Player award, an honor bestowed on only two
other guitarists, - "In Recognition Of His Contributions To
The Art Of Fingerpicking". Sadly, this was Chet's final
recording before his death in 2001.
One of
his career highlights was his life-performance at Sydney when
he played on the closing ceremony of the Summer Olympics in
2000. 1 Billion people watched this event which was shown
worldwide.
Tommy's
latest album, "The Mystery," was released August 22, 2006.
Tommy
Emmanuel Official Website
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