May 16, 2026 • 15 mins
Tommy Emmanuel's a big name in the acoustic guitar world, and he's set to start a new tour.
Throughout his career he’s performed with bands like Air Supply and Men at Work, headlined tours around the Globe and toured with Eric Clapton and John Denver.
Among his many career awards, he’s won a Grammy for best instrumental arrangement and is one of only 5 ever Chet Atkins certified guitar players.
His Living in the Light Tour starts in Auckland at the Town Hall tonight.
"I feel it's my calling to play for people, because when I play, people get happy. So I don't call it the music business, I call it the happiness business. I play, you get happy - everyone's happy."
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News Talks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Tommy Emmanuel is a living legend of the acoustic guitar world.
Throughout his career, he's performed with bands like Air Supply
and Minute Work, headlined tours around the globe, and toured
with Eric Clapton and John Denver. His collaborations include work
with the guitar greats Mark Knopfler, Joe Walsh, and Les Paul.
Among his many career awards, he's won a Grammy Award
for Best Instrumental Arrangement and is one of only five
(00:34):
ever Jet Aitkins certified guitar players. Tommy's Living and Light
Tour starts in Auckland at the town Hall tonight and
he joins me in the studio. Tommy, it is lovely
to have you with me.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
That was quite a mouthful.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
It was, well, you've done quite a lot, so I
know that's the thing. It's kind of like, Okay, who
do you pack to talk about? I mean, it is
quite the career that we have just briefly brushed over there.
But can I go back to the beginning. What were
you when you picked up a guitar.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
I was four years old. My mother was already playing
she and she got interested in Hawaiian music and so
she was trying to work out how to play the
slide steel guitar and she needed a rhythm guy to
go like right, yeah, So she bought me a guitar
(01:31):
for my fourth birthday and showed me how to play chords.
And it wasn't long before we were playing together. We
were playing music together, and I had a kind of
basic understanding of how a song works. And you know,
I still don't read music, and I've never had any lessons.
(01:51):
I'm completely self taught, and basically I'm guilty of petty theft.
I stole everything from everybody I possibly could.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
You know, that's really interesting because I winded after your
mum had taught you those cards, whether she just left
you then to kind of work it out yourself.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Well, Imosis, Really, I had brothers and sisters, so I
was the youngest. So my older brother, Phil, who was
nearly three years older than me, he had such an
incredible ear. You know, we would hear a song, you know,
say White Rabbit by Peter Poser, and he'd say, that's
e to a to eat it, and then he would
(02:26):
work out the melee and I would work out the
chord sequence and next thing we're playing the song.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Are you born with that or can anybody get to
that point?
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Well, I think most of us just follow what comes
natural to us. You know, you can learn stuff. I mean,
how can somebody go to acting school and become as
good as Robert t. Niro. You can't.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
There's got to be something in there.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Absolutely, things like that are a gift, and they're given
to us for a reason, for the benefit of everyone else.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
And I think you were about six when the family
sold the house and you became a traveler band, a
traveling family band.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
The Emanual Quartet hit the road, went broke pretty quickly.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
And the charm of a sex year old didn't went
over the growl, the.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Crowd went mild. Now the audience leaped to its foot.
So that's what That's what it was like, you know.
But we did stuff like follow the show ground around
and play on the back of the truck and all
I sort of played ten times a day and my
dad would take the hat around. But we were playing
music people liked, you know, And I'm really grateful today
(03:40):
that I was born, when I was born and where
I was born, because it was a great era, the
sixties and the seventies and stuff. It was a great
era for music and melody and great records, you know,
and that kind of paved the way for me. It
gave me some experience and knowledge about how a song works,
(04:04):
how the melody works with the chords, and if you've
got a response from the people, then you knew that
they loved what you were doing, so I better do
more of that.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
So what were the songs that you were playing that
you would still give you joy to play? Now?
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Oh? Well, the very first song I heard Chad Atkins play,
Can I play a little bit of it? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (04:28):
It's called Windy and Warm?
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Right, So somewhere else when you play, don't you? Hey,
you just go somewhere else.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
When you play, I go inside the guitar.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
Yeah you do.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Yeah, you can see that. Yeah. So I was seven
when I heard that, and I could tell he was
playing everything at once. He's playing the left hand on
the piano this. Yeah, there's the accompaniment with the thumb
and then the fingers played like a right. And there
(05:13):
are people here in New Zealand who can do that
and do it very well.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
But he was, he was one of your idols.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
He was, and he became my because my dad died
when I was ten and Chet really became like a
daddy to me later on in my life and later
on in his life.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
So being one of only five certified guitar players, what
does that mean? What's the significant.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Well, it's basically on my award. It says for lifetime
contribution to the art of fingerpicking. That's all it says.
So it doesn't say anything else, you know. And so
you know, I feel it's my calling to play for
people because when I play, people get happy. So I
(06:00):
don't call it the music business. I call it the
happiness business. Right, So I play, you get happy, everyone's happy.
It's a good job. But what I really love doing
is teaching and handing on whatever it is I know
to someone else who's smarter than me, you know, and
can do something else with it.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
And this is why you run these you run these
guitar camps. But but you've been referred to as one
of the best guitarists in the world, and I did
read that you actually don't really like that reference.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
Why not.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
You've got the certificate to president.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
It doesn't matter now. I haven't got anything. All I've
got is what I've got right now, because I live
in today. You know, I take my life one day
at a time, and so today's a great day, the
sun shining. I'm in one of the world's great cities,
in a great country, and I'm going to play music tonight.
It's exciting.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
What do you think it is about you? Though? That
does sit you apart from other players.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
I've got more gray hair than most of them experience.
Is that what we say?
Speaker 2 (07:05):
When I did the introduction, we were sort of talking
about all the bands and things that you've played in,
and when you were younger, you were definitely part of bands,
as you were saying, you were part of Dragon for
a while. They're in things, and then sort of you
have moved sort of more into working on your own,
but you're still delving into kind of collaborating with lots
of people. That's why it's a lovely way to be
(07:26):
a musician, isn't it?
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Well it is. And you know, I was signed with
mister and Missus Sony for quite a while and they
were a great record company back then. And I'm sure
they still are, but you know, they were able to
hook me up with other artists where we could do
collaborations together, and it was great fun, you know. And
so it was only like ten years ago that I
(07:48):
made my first album called Accomplice one right. I like
the word accomplice rather than you know, duets, accomplice someone
who helps you create, you know, mayhem. So anyway, so
I asked people like Jerry Douglas and Sierra Hull, Molly
(08:10):
Tuttle and Mark Knoffler and people like that, and you know,
I had a great time putting that record together, you know,
and I was very fortunate because people were up for it.
They were ready to come in and see what it
is that I wanted them to do.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
You know, who do you think of the other great
guitarists around.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
There's way too many of them. Two, you know, I
don't I see myself as an entertainer and a songwriter
and all that sort of stuff. I'm not, you know,
focused only on guitar. In fact, most people think that
guys like me only listen to guitar players, and nothing
could be further from the truth. I very rarely listen
(08:56):
to a guitar record because there's so many good singers
and songwriters. I'm interested in learning how to be a
better songwriter. You know.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
That's interesting. You've always pushed the ball when it comes
to acoustic guitar. Is that something you've done.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
You've got very big The people who came before me,
Doc Watson, Leoclocky, you know, people like that. People who
came before me set a high bar, but they all
did their thing their way, and I always wanted to
be different. I don't know how to be like them,
you know. So I also have a need to sound
(09:32):
as big as a band when I play, you know,
and I like going from a raw to a whisper.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Oh, that's really interesting. You have to try, and yes,
you're trying to create that bigger experience than.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
It's in my head. By the way, Yeah, the band
is in my head.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
It's so busy. You were just saying to me, you've
just toured the UIs and you did twenty eight gigs
in thirty two days. I don't want to comment on
your age too. I would have thought you would have
you would these days you'd be sort of trying to
do you like getting it done quite quickly and not
sort of take time to slow touring.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
They call it, Oh no, I haven't got time to
all right, We're okay.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
I get out here and go to work right when
I leave home. My mindset is straight. Is like, as
soon as I close the front door, I'm going to work.
Right when I come home, I can do what I like,
you know. So the way my life is now, I'm
so busy that I plan a year in advance being
(10:31):
with my family, my grown up children and my grandchildren.
Then I have another daughter who's going to school in Sydney,
and so I've got to divide my time. I live
in Nashville, I've been there for twenty five years. I've
got a place in England, and so I go between
(10:52):
England and Australia and back to America. I don't know
how much longer I'm going to do that, but you know,
I love traveling and I love playing, and I don't
really want to do anything else apart from you know,
being a granddad is one of the few things in
(11:12):
life that is not overrated.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
I love that you are going to perform for us
a song called black and White to Color.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
This is from my new album Living in the Light,
and You Better rush out and get it because you know,
I'll get bills to pay folks. So it starts out
with a bit of rock. In addition to row it
(12:53):
comes a color.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Baas amazing, Tommy, and I totally see what you mean.
(14:24):
When the color kicks in, the whole feeling change opened up,
the walk came in and absolutely incredible. Gosh, a delight
to watch you play up close.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Oh thank you.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Yeah, that was absolutely incredible. Can I please ask about
the guitar. Are they scratchers on the back of the
guitar here?
Speaker 3 (14:39):
Yeah? Yeah, I did that on purpose. I scratched it up. Yeah,
so that in the middle of a tune. Yeah, I
do a breakdown and I play the bass with my
left hand and I played like a brush's here. So
check this out.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Look at you multi instruments list on.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
One instrument, all singing, all dancing.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
It has been a delight to meet you. Thank you
so much for coming in and for playing for us.
Tommy's Living in the Light tour starts tonight in Auckland
before heading to Hamilton, Palmerson, North Wellington and christ You
Itch travel safe, be.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
There or where it's giv.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin. Listen
live to News Talks it B from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News Talks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Tommy Emmanuel is a living legend of the acoustic guitar world.
Throughout his career, he's performed with bands like Air Supply
and Minute Work, headlined tours around the globe, and toured
with Eric Clapton and John Denver. His collaborations include work
with the guitar greats Mark Knopfler, Joe Walsh, and Les Paul.
Among his many career awards, he's won a Grammy Award
for Best Instrumental Arrangement and is one of only five
(00:34):
ever Jet Aitkins certified guitar players. Tommy's Living and Light
Tour starts in Auckland at the town Hall tonight and
he joins me in the studio. Tommy, it is lovely
to have you with me.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
That was quite a mouthful.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
It was, well, you've done quite a lot, so I
know that's the thing. It's kind of like, Okay, who
do you pack to talk about? I mean, it is
quite the career that we have just briefly brushed over there.
But can I go back to the beginning. What were
you when you picked up a guitar.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
I was four years old. My mother was already playing
she and she got interested in Hawaiian music and so
she was trying to work out how to play the
slide steel guitar and she needed a rhythm guy to
go like right, yeah, So she bought me a guitar
(01:31):
for my fourth birthday and showed me how to play chords.
And it wasn't long before we were playing together. We
were playing music together, and I had a kind of
basic understanding of how a song works. And you know,
I still don't read music, and I've never had any lessons.
(01:51):
I'm completely self taught, and basically I'm guilty of petty theft.
I stole everything from everybody I possibly could.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
You know, that's really interesting because I winded after your
mum had taught you those cards, whether she just left
you then to kind of work it out yourself.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Well, Imosis, Really, I had brothers and sisters, so I
was the youngest. So my older brother, Phil, who was
nearly three years older than me, he had such an
incredible ear. You know, we would hear a song, you know,
say White Rabbit by Peter Poser, and he'd say, that's
e to a to eat it, and then he would
(02:26):
work out the melee and I would work out the
chord sequence and next thing we're playing the song.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Are you born with that or can anybody get to
that point?
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Well, I think most of us just follow what comes
natural to us. You know, you can learn stuff. I mean,
how can somebody go to acting school and become as
good as Robert t. Niro. You can't.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
There's got to be something in there.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Absolutely, things like that are a gift, and they're given
to us for a reason, for the benefit of everyone else.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
And I think you were about six when the family
sold the house and you became a traveler band, a
traveling family band.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
The Emanual Quartet hit the road, went broke pretty quickly.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
And the charm of a sex year old didn't went
over the growl, the.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Crowd went mild. Now the audience leaped to its foot.
So that's what That's what it was like, you know.
But we did stuff like follow the show ground around
and play on the back of the truck and all
I sort of played ten times a day and my
dad would take the hat around. But we were playing
music people liked, you know, And I'm really grateful today
(03:40):
that I was born, when I was born and where
I was born, because it was a great era, the
sixties and the seventies and stuff. It was a great
era for music and melody and great records, you know,
and that kind of paved the way for me. It
gave me some experience and knowledge about how a song works,
(04:04):
how the melody works with the chords, and if you've
got a response from the people, then you knew that
they loved what you were doing, so I better do
more of that.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
So what were the songs that you were playing that
you would still give you joy to play? Now?
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Oh? Well, the very first song I heard Chad Atkins play,
Can I play a little bit of it? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (04:28):
It's called Windy and Warm?
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Right, So somewhere else when you play, don't you? Hey,
you just go somewhere else.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
When you play, I go inside the guitar.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
Yeah you do.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Yeah, you can see that. Yeah. So I was seven
when I heard that, and I could tell he was
playing everything at once. He's playing the left hand on
the piano this. Yeah, there's the accompaniment with the thumb
and then the fingers played like a right. And there
(05:13):
are people here in New Zealand who can do that
and do it very well.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
But he was, he was one of your idols.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
He was, and he became my because my dad died
when I was ten and Chet really became like a
daddy to me later on in my life and later
on in his life.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
So being one of only five certified guitar players, what
does that mean? What's the significant.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Well, it's basically on my award. It says for lifetime
contribution to the art of fingerpicking. That's all it says.
So it doesn't say anything else, you know. And so
you know, I feel it's my calling to play for
people because when I play, people get happy. So I
(06:00):
don't call it the music business. I call it the
happiness business. Right, So I play, you get happy, everyone's happy.
It's a good job. But what I really love doing
is teaching and handing on whatever it is I know
to someone else who's smarter than me, you know, and
can do something else with it.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
And this is why you run these you run these
guitar camps. But but you've been referred to as one
of the best guitarists in the world, and I did
read that you actually don't really like that reference.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
Why not.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
You've got the certificate to president.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
It doesn't matter now. I haven't got anything. All I've
got is what I've got right now, because I live
in today. You know, I take my life one day
at a time, and so today's a great day, the
sun shining. I'm in one of the world's great cities,
in a great country, and I'm going to play music tonight.
It's exciting.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
What do you think it is about you? Though? That
does sit you apart from other players.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
I've got more gray hair than most of them experience.
Is that what we say?
Speaker 2 (07:05):
When I did the introduction, we were sort of talking
about all the bands and things that you've played in,
and when you were younger, you were definitely part of bands,
as you were saying, you were part of Dragon for
a while. They're in things, and then sort of you
have moved sort of more into working on your own,
but you're still delving into kind of collaborating with lots
of people. That's why it's a lovely way to be
(07:26):
a musician, isn't it?
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Well it is. And you know, I was signed with
mister and Missus Sony for quite a while and they
were a great record company back then. And I'm sure
they still are, but you know, they were able to
hook me up with other artists where we could do
collaborations together, and it was great fun, you know. And
so it was only like ten years ago that I
(07:48):
made my first album called Accomplice one right. I like
the word accomplice rather than you know, duets, accomplice someone
who helps you create, you know, mayhem. So anyway, so
I asked people like Jerry Douglas and Sierra Hull, Molly
(08:10):
Tuttle and Mark Knoffler and people like that, and you know,
I had a great time putting that record together, you know,
and I was very fortunate because people were up for it.
They were ready to come in and see what it
is that I wanted them to do.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
You know, who do you think of the other great
guitarists around.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
There's way too many of them. Two, you know, I
don't I see myself as an entertainer and a songwriter
and all that sort of stuff. I'm not, you know,
focused only on guitar. In fact, most people think that
guys like me only listen to guitar players, and nothing
could be further from the truth. I very rarely listen
(08:56):
to a guitar record because there's so many good singers
and songwriters. I'm interested in learning how to be a
better songwriter. You know.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
That's interesting. You've always pushed the ball when it comes
to acoustic guitar. Is that something you've done.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
You've got very big The people who came before me,
Doc Watson, Leoclocky, you know, people like that. People who
came before me set a high bar, but they all
did their thing their way, and I always wanted to
be different. I don't know how to be like them,
you know. So I also have a need to sound
(09:32):
as big as a band when I play, you know,
and I like going from a raw to a whisper.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Oh, that's really interesting. You have to try, and yes,
you're trying to create that bigger experience than.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
It's in my head. By the way, Yeah, the band
is in my head.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
It's so busy. You were just saying to me, you've
just toured the UIs and you did twenty eight gigs
in thirty two days. I don't want to comment on
your age too. I would have thought you would have
you would these days you'd be sort of trying to
do you like getting it done quite quickly and not
sort of take time to slow touring.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
They call it, Oh no, I haven't got time to
all right, We're okay.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
I get out here and go to work right when
I leave home. My mindset is straight. Is like, as
soon as I close the front door, I'm going to work.
Right when I come home, I can do what I like,
you know. So the way my life is now, I'm
so busy that I plan a year in advance being
(10:31):
with my family, my grown up children and my grandchildren.
Then I have another daughter who's going to school in Sydney,
and so I've got to divide my time. I live
in Nashville, I've been there for twenty five years. I've
got a place in England, and so I go between
(10:52):
England and Australia and back to America. I don't know
how much longer I'm going to do that, but you know,
I love traveling and I love playing, and I don't
really want to do anything else apart from you know,
being a granddad is one of the few things in
(11:12):
life that is not overrated.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
I love that you are going to perform for us
a song called black and White to Color.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
This is from my new album Living in the Light,
and You Better rush out and get it because you know,
I'll get bills to pay folks. So it starts out
with a bit of rock. In addition to row it
(12:53):
comes a color.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Baas amazing, Tommy, and I totally see what you mean.
(14:24):
When the color kicks in, the whole feeling change opened up,
the walk came in and absolutely incredible. Gosh, a delight
to watch you play up close.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Oh thank you.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Yeah, that was absolutely incredible. Can I please ask about
the guitar. Are they scratchers on the back of the
guitar here?
Speaker 3 (14:39):
Yeah? Yeah, I did that on purpose. I scratched it up. Yeah,
so that in the middle of a tune. Yeah, I
do a breakdown and I play the bass with my
left hand and I played like a brush's here. So
check this out.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Look at you multi instruments list on.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
One instrument, all singing, all dancing.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
It has been a delight to meet you. Thank you
so much for coming in and for playing for us.
Tommy's Living in the Light tour starts tonight in Auckland
before heading to Hamilton, Palmerson, North Wellington and christ You
Itch travel safe, be.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
There or where it's giv.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin. Listen
live to News Talks it B from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
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