Tommy Emmanuel at The Bridgewater Hall, Manchester

Tommy Emmanuel

If you like guitar playing, it simply doesn’t get any better than Tommy Emmanuel. Widely acknowledged as the international master of the solo acoustic guitar, Tommy has achieved enough musical milestones to satisfy several lifetimes.

Or at least they would if he was the kind of artist who was ever satisfied.

At the age of six, he was touring regional Australia with his family band. By 30, he was a rock n’ roll lead guitarist burning up stadiums in Europe.

Today, he plays hundreds of sold-out shows every year, dazzling audiences across the world from Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium to London’s Royal Festival Hall and Paris’ L’Olympia.

While thousands of fans have spent years trying to unpack and imitate Tommy’s technique, for him it’s just the delivery system. His approach is always song and emotion first, his music the embodiment of his soulful spirit, sense of hope and his love for entertaining.

Tommy has a Grammy Award, multiple ARIA Awards and countless accolades, but nothing means more to Tommy than the three letters Chet Atkins designated at the end of Tommy’s name: CGP. The title of Certified Guitar Player was the highest honor Atkins could bestow on another player – a signifier that the recipient had not only mastered the instrument but taken it to new vistas and become a guiding light for the next generation of pickers.

As a songwriter and a performer, Tommy is a melting pot of influences across genres, form pop to bluegrass and jazz to rock n’ roll. To him, music is rhythm and emotion, all other distinctions are meaningless. Anyone who has seen Tommy play will tell you, the vocalist is there, as is the drummer, the bass player and the rhythm and lead guitarists.

In a way that must often be seen to be believed, Tommy plays all the parts of a full band simultaneously, his fingers dancing around the fretboard with a dexterity and speed that would seem impossible if you weren’t witnessing it.