Tune in on Tuesday, April 21st at 12pm to hear Jon the Reptilian speak with GRAMMY winning guitarist, Tommy Emmanuel, ahead of his Palace of Fine Arts Theatre performance on April 24th.
Emmanuel’s first solo album in ten years, Living in the Light is a virtuosic blend of acoustic pop, jazz, classical, and roots music delivered by one of the modern era’s most accomplished and versatile guitarists. The release has been praised by Rock and Roll Globe, Premier Guitar, American Blues Scene, and The Bluegrass Situation, who called it “his most eclectic album.”
Tommy Emmanuel first began touring at the age of six in his native Australia as part of a family band. In his teenage years, he turned heads as a highly sought after session player and sideman, and by his early twenties, Emmanuel was playing on chart-topping hits and performing with some of the biggest names in Australian music, including Air Supply and Men at Work.
Emmanuel stepped out on his own as a solo artist in 1979, releasing the first in a string of critically and commercially acclaimed instrumental albums that would make him an unlikely celebrity in his home country and beyond. In the decades that followed, he would go on to headline everywhere from the Sydney Opera House to Carnegie Hall; tour with the likes of Eric Clapton and John Denver; win a GRAMMY Award for Best Instrumental Arrangement; perform for a televised audience of more than two billion at the closing ceremony of the Sydney Olympics; and collaborate with everyone from Les Paul and Mark Knopfler to Joe Walsh and Richard Thompson.
More than sixty years into his storied career, Tommy Emmanuel is still hungry for adventure. “As I get older, I find myself taking a lot more risks, and having a lot more fun in the process,” says Emmanuel, who recently celebrated his 70th birthday. “When young people come to my shows and have this awakening that it’s okay to be different, that the possibilities of music and self-expression are limitless, that’s what it’s all about for me.”
Photo: Simone Cecchetti
