Guitarist Tommy Emmanuel: ‘Cambridge Folk Festival is one of my favourites’
One of the most respected guitarists around, Australian two-time Grammy nominee Tommy Emmanuel, a true virtuoso, is returning to the Cambridge Folk Festival.
The Cambridge Independent caught up with Tommy, 69, via Zoom at his home in Nashville, Tennessee – though interestingly it wasn’t country music that triggered the move to Music City.
“The reason I’m in Nashville is this is the place where I came in 1980 to meet my hero [legendary guitar player] Chet Atkins,” explains Tommy, who was touring regional Australia with his family band at the age of six.
“And when he dropped me at the airport at the end of that day, he said ‘I really think you should consider coming back here because this is where you belong’ – and he was right.
“But it took me a long time to get here – 33 years later I moved here. I moved here in 2003, so it’s been 20 years since then.”
Tommy, who previously lived in England and still has family over here, continues: “I make a living on the road, I’m a touring concert musician, that’s what I do.
“And I don’t really know of anything else that I want to do more than playing for people and being an entertainer – that’s what I love. It’s good being here in Nashville, like next week I’m on the Opry [the world-famous Grand Ole Opry, a regular live country music radio broadcast], and occasionally I do TV shows – and every two years I play at the Ryman Auditorium [an historic performance venue in downtown Nashville].
“I do a guitar retreat here for 140 students for four days every year, so this is my home, my manager’s here, and most of my musician friends – American, English and Australian – they’re all here.”
The very friendly musician, who notes that as well as country music, The Shadows were “just as big an influence in the early days”, is a rare ‘certified guitar player’, an international title bestowed on him by Chet Atkins (Tommy is one of only five people to receive this accolade).
Atkins, who passed away in 2001, hailed Tommy as “one of the best guitar players I’ve ever seen”, and the aforementioned show that Tommy had lined up at the Grand Ole Opry, alongside fiddle player Michael Cleveland, was a tribute to Chet Atkins to mark 100 years since his birth.
A household name in his native Australia, Tommy’s unique style – he calls it simply ‘finger style’ – is akin to playing guitar the way a pianist plays piano, using all 10 fingers.
His vast repertoire encompasses not only country and bluegrass, but also pop, jazz, blues, gospel, and even classical, flamenco and aboriginal styles.
Tommy’s most recent album, Accomplice Two (2023), is a duets album featuring the likes of Billy Strings, Molly Tuttle, Michael McDonald, Jamey Johnson, and Raul Malo of The Mavericks.
Accomplice One, which included duets with other accomplished artists such as Jason Isbell, Ricky Skaggs, Rodney Crowell, Jerry Douglas, and Suzy Bogguss, was released in 2018.
On what Folk Festival-goers can expect to see when Tommy takes the stage at Cherry Hinton Hall, Tommy says: “I’m doing a solo show [on the Friday], plus I’m doing some songs with Jerry Douglas and the Transatlantic Sessions [on the Saturday], so it’s a bit of both – I’m going to be playing a solo set as well as in the band with Jerry.”
And it’s a welcome return for Tommy to the festival. “I think this is the third time,” he says. “It’s one of my favourites, it’s so well-run and just has a great vibe to it.
“It’s a festival that I wanted to get on for a long time. When you get on a festival like that, you know that this is the real deal and you’d better get out there and give it everything – no messing around!”
Tommy Emmanuel, whose career spans five decades, will be performing solo at the Cambridge Folk Festival on Friday, 26 July, and as part of the Transatlantic Sessions on Saturday, 27 July.
For more on the Cambridge Folk Festival, visit cambridgelive.org.uk/folk-festival. For more on Tommy, go to tommyemmanuel.com.
