Tommy Emmanuel is not kind to his guitars
The Grammy-winning Australian musician beats out rhythms on their soundboards, scrapes the top of them with pliers, and sands off finishes so he has yet another surface to punish. On average, Emmanuel’s guitars survive five years of this before they become unplayable. Sometimes that happens onstage, at which point he reaches for his nearby backup and carries on with the set. And it’s all worth it, both for Emmanuel and for his audiences. Meanwhile, people in high places have continued to sing his praise. Fellow guitar legend Steve Vai says to “imagine Chet Atkins with the testosterone of Eddie Van Halen,” while Atkins himself, who was Emmanuel’s mentor, once described him as one of the best guitar players he’d ever seen.
Emmanuel moved to Nashville back in the early 2000s, and has since collaborated with a newer generation of high-profile artists that includes Jason Isbell, Amanda Shires, Little Big Town, and Billy Strings.
In the following interview, Emmanuel talks about the strict four-day deadline that shaped the recording of his latest album, “Living in the Light,” the guitar hero who taught him more than just technique, and the surprising origins of his singular tremolo technique.
the Source: Let’s start off with a question about Chet Atkins. Beyond what you learned about music and technique from him, what personal quality did he embody that served as the greatest inspiration for you?
Tommy Emmanuel: I would say his kindness and genuineness to people was an inspiration to me. Not only was he like a daddy to me, but I saw him do so much for so many people. The way he treated people was beautiful. He was generous with his time, his knowledge, and his spirit. That authenticity and warmth is something I’ve tried to carry into my own life and career. It showed me that you could be one of the greatest musicians who ever lived and still maintain that sense of humility and connection with people. That philosophical approach — treating everyone with respect and kindness — is, to me, just as important as the music itself.
tS: You’re known for recording songs in a single take. For “Living in the Light,” were there any tracks that required more than one take due to a specific musical challenge?
TE: What happened with this album is I only had a four-day window to work with Vance Powell, who is one of my favorite engineers and producers, known for his work with artists like Chris Stapleton and Jack White. So I was under pressure to get everything recorded in that time; “Young Travelers,” “Scarlet World,” “Little Georgia,” “You Needed Me,” “Black and White to Color,” “Drowning Heart,” all those songs were one take. The other stuff, like the song “Maxine,” was layered: I programmed a drum part, then played the rhythm, then the bass, some percussion, and then added some real drums. We did the vocals, and I got Kristen, the girl who works with Jelly Roll, to come in for the backing vocal parts, as the vocal groove is really important in that song. Then I borrowed Jack White’s custom-made Fender amp, got it amped up, played a couple of electric solos, and chose the second one. As soon as that was all done, we mixed it. So, even the layered tracks were completed within that short time frame.
tS: You’ve also got a very long history of punishing your guitars. I’m especially curious about your technique where you bend the neck of your guitar to make it sound like a tremolo. How did that come about, and how many guitars did you destroy before you perfected it?
TE: Oh, I’ve never broken a guitar by doing so, thankfully! The necks on my guitars are incredibly well made. You’re not going to break the neck — you could probably play cricket with that neck! The technique of bending the neck to make a tremolo sound goes way back to around 1961. We were little kids listening to surf music, but we didn’t know that people were playing a guitar with a proper tremolo arm on it. We had no idea because we never saw the players or the actual instruments. We were living in a little country town in the Australian outback. My brother, instinctively, found that if he bent the neck a little, it made that warbling sound. So we started doing that, and that’s how that technique came about and became a core part of my playing style, a physical way to get the vibrato effect without a mechanical device.
tS: The new album’s sonic quality is exceptional, especially on the acoustic tracks. Can you share what contributed to that sound?
TE: I’d say it’s a bit of everything, honestly. Vance already had his favorite choice of mics set up for recording acoustic guitar when I arrived the first morning. I just basically sat down, put headphones on, and started playing and had a listen to the mics. He came out, moved them around a little bit, and then we both agreed, ‘There it is. That’s the sound.’ That’s how we did it. When I recorded the song, “Waiting for the Times to Get Better,” that was actually a completely live performance, live guitar, live vocal, and I wasn’t even wearing headphones. I was just sitting, playing, and singing. He simply placed the mics where he wanted them, and away we went. He made the entire process as easy as possible. Man, that’s why you go with a guy as good as him; he makes your job that much easier, especially when you’re under a tight time constraint like we were.
tS: Given your Australian roots, how often have you collaborated with didgeridoo players, either live or in the studio?
TE: Oh, many times. Everywhere in Australia, on TV, at shows, at festivals. You’ve got to remember that back in the late ’60s and early ’70s, I was based way out in the middle of Australia, in the bush. So, I played mostly to Aboriginal audiences, and that’s a deep part of where I’m from. It really gives you a sense of inventing things yourself. We don’t rely on fixing it up later in the mix; we do it live. That whole ethos of creating the sound by hand, whether it’s making my guitar sound like a didgeridoo through an amp or crafting an entire soundscape in one take, comes from that early experience in the outback. It’s all about resourcefulness and finding the sound in the moment.
tS: Aside from Chet Atkins, which influential figure from the world of jazz, soul, or classical music has a melodic language you have explicitly tried to reverse engineer?
TE: Ray Charles has always been one of my biggest influences. And Jerry Reed, B.B. King, Eric Clapton… but I’d have to say probably my favorite jazz player would be Wes Montgomery. I also love George Benson and Lenny Breau. I am so into songs and singers, and for me, all those great soul artists — Diana Ross, Carole King, James Taylor — they have that deep soul. The earliest influences in music that really got to my soul were Hank Williams and Jimmie Rodgers. That’s soul, country, and blues all mixed together. When I listen to someone like Wes Montgomery, I’m trying to figure out how he constructed his solos, how he thought about the chord progression, and how he made the melodies flow with such clarity and rhythm. That’s the reverse-engineering part: not just copying, but understanding the language.
tS: You’ve prioritized great repertoire over technique. Are there times when you deliberately remove a technically brilliant, flashy section from a song because it distracted from the core melody?
TE: I always bring up this advice when young guys, especially those going to places like Berkeley, ask me about improvising. I always tell them, “If you want to learn good improvising, then have a listen to people who do it well.” I tell them to have a listen to Oscar Peterson on the piano, Ella Fitzgerald scatting, and Larry Carlton’s solo on Steely Dan’s “Kid Charlemagne.” Those are the touchstones for me. Why? Because none of them prioritize flash over the musical moment. Larry Carlton’s solo on “Kid Charlemagne,” for instance, is phenomenal because every note serves the song. It’s not just speed; it’s melodic structure and phrasing. If you can listen to those three examples and not improve your sense of improvisation, nothing will. That’s the lesson I internalize: if a technique is just showing off and doesn’t make the song better or the arrangement more interesting, it doesn’t belong.
Tommy Emmanuel
Wed. Apr 15 7:30pm
Tower Theatre
835 NW Wall St, Bend
towertheatre.org/event/tommy-emmanuel-cgp-4-15-26
$49.50+
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