May 30, 2024 • 10 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, born in Australia, Tommy Emmanuel fell in love with American country guitar legend, Chet Atkins. The rest, as they say, is history—Tommy explains. We'll be playing his music throughout this story.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we return to our American stories. Up next, a
story from a man many considered to be the best
acoustic guitarist in the world. Interestingly, he's also a member
of the Order of Australia and a Kentucky colonel. Were,
of course talking about Tommy Emmanuel. Here's Tommy's story of
(00:30):
how he discovered music and himself. We'll be playing his
music throughout the entire piece.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
The musician's prayer is beautiful because it says, make me
a hollow read from which the fifth of self has
been blown. In other words, get rid of me and
all my crap, my ego, my pride, my need for acceptance,
or any of that. Get rid of all that and
(01:00):
just make me an open channel. The love that is
in this universe may flow through me through the music,
and it may go out to other people and really
help them in their lives. Looking back on my childhood,
(01:26):
I just want to say that everything that was American
was the best in the world. It was the best music,
the best movies, the best cars, the best clothes, the
best guitars, the best everything came from this country. I
started playing guitar because my mother could play guitar a
(01:50):
bit and she was trying to teach herself how to
play Hawaiian music because it was very popular in the
early sixties in Australia Rule Australia, where we come from.
She wanted me to play rhythm for her, and she
knew I had rhythm in me because when I was little,
(02:11):
she would put my pram in front of the record player.
I'd be screaming my lungs out and she'd put music
on and I'd go straight to sleep. And then when
I was able to walk around and run around the house,
when she put the washing in the washing machine and
pulled the lever at the side and the machine and
ku kuk kuk kum ku kunk kuk, I came and
(02:34):
danced with the washing machine. And sometimes I fell asleep
leaning against the washing machine. So she knew there was
something going on in me that could only be satisfied
by rhythm and groove and stuff like that. So she
got me a guitar when I turned four, and showed
(02:54):
me how to put my fingers on the cords. And
she said to me, thirty five five years later, she said,
it was like a miracle. I got the guitar in
the morning and in the afternoon, her and I played
a couple of songs together, and she said, I played
the time perfectly, I understood how the song worked, and
(03:16):
we had fun playing together. And she just kept encouraging
me and showing me new chords and new songs. And
then the rest of my family took up instruments and
we became a family band. By the time I was
five and almost six, we were already playing music festivals
and coming out as the emmanual family band kind of thing.
(03:41):
And what we played was music that we heard on
the radio. It was Hawaiian music, instrumental, surfy kind of music.
There was a band from England called The Shadows, and
they were the biggest influence on everybody in those days.
But as a musician, my life really changed when I
heard Chad Atkins.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Here's a turne written by the Las Indios Tapagerius. The
boys from Brazil that found a guitar out in the
jungle didn't know what it was. They watched it for
a month or so and it didn't explode, so they
took it home and learned to play it. That's what
they said. Anyway, I believe them. Ju They wrote this
(04:24):
tone and it must have one million notes. I've never
counted them. I'm afraid to. I don't think I could
play it if I counted it.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
I knew that that's what I wanted to do. I
wanted to play like that. I'd hadn't a clue what
it was or how to do it. But that's what
changed my life. I knew exactly where I belonged. I
knew that I had to be a concert player. I
had not a clue how it was going, how I
was going to get there. I spent all my teen
(05:09):
years soaking up every record that I could find. I
remember when I turned sixteen, I bought myself Carol King's
Tapestry album. I bought Don McLean's American Pie, Gordon Lightfoot's albums.
People turned me on to Ray Charles and Oscar Pedison
(05:29):
and jazz music, and I discovered Where's Montgomery and people
like that? Right, that was good for me, and I
spent a good twenty years in the trenches. I had
to play in bands, I had to entertain people in
bars and places where people didn't listen. All that so
(05:49):
I could eat and pay a rent. And I had
songs in movies. I wrote music themes for TV shows
I did. I did game shows, playing with orchestra, play
with a string quartet. I played with a jazz band.
I was a drummer in a band. I was a
record producer. I did everything that you can imagine that
(06:13):
a person can do in my home country. So I
knew that in order for me to be really inspired
and challenged, I had to go where people did everything
a lot better, and that was here in America. I
came to America the first time in nineteen eighty to
(06:33):
visit chedd Atkins, my hero, and he said to me,
then this is where you belong. You should be here
in Nashville. And I just kept coming back and kept
coming back. Personally, I got into drinking like some of
(06:56):
my family members, you know, took uppers and down a
and all that sort of stuff, and did all that
stuff that most people do until I crashed and burned
too many times. I found a better way to live.
I found salvation.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Really.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
I was raised in the church by my mother and father,
but I never believed in the church, you know, probably
because I met way too many hypocrites. So I have
no desire to be a religious person and follow one
particular path. When people talk about God, most people go, oh,
(07:39):
I don't want to talk about that, But you can
look at it like this, Okay, So because I'm a
drunk and a drug addict in my body and in
my spirit, I go to God a group of drunks,
or good orderly direction, or the gift of desperation. There's
a few ways of saying the word. But I had
(08:01):
to learn to surrender. I had to let go of
my pride, my ego, which is what had been ruling
me all my life, you know, And so I had
to find a way of believing that there was a
power greater than myself that could restore me to sanity,
(08:23):
to normal. And that's what's happened, and it continues every day.
So I definitely have a big faith in a higher power.
And that's the way I believe it's meant to be.
We find out what works for us, you know, it
(08:45):
has to be honest and it has to be real.
So the proof to me that my higher power is
working for me and I can trust it is the
fact that I woke up this morning. A. I didn't
feel like drinking. B I didn't need to change how
(09:06):
I felt. I was happy, in my own skin. I'm
happy how I feel today. I don't need to alter
my thinking or my you know. And that to me
is a miracle, because I was at the point where
I would wake up at four o'clock in the morning
(09:27):
and start drinking, you know. Then I'd sleep again, then
I'd wake up at midday and start drinking again, and
I was going to die. That's where I was at.
And it's a miracle that I survived and that I'm
here in such good health today. There's simplicity in my life.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Now, you know.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
So I'm really really grateful, And a special thanks to
Jesse Edwards and to Monty Montgomery for the work on
this story, and thanks to Tommy Emmanuel. And go to
YouTube and just google Tommy's name and just listen to
the way he plays the guitar. It's like nothing you've
(10:09):
ever heard. Somewhere over the Rainbow was my introduction to
him at a club in Nashville, and I couldn't believe
what I heard or saw, and have been a fan
ever since. And my goodness, his struggles, he was very
open and very frank about them, with alcohol, with his pride,
with ego, and then he found God or a higher
power as he put it. And now there's a simplicity,
(10:31):
he said, in my life. And you could hear a
peace in his life. Tommy Emmanuel virtuoso guitarist and a
heck of a storyteller. His story here an Hour American
Stories
And we return to our American stories. Up next, a
story from a man many considered to be the best
acoustic guitarist in the world. Interestingly, he's also a member
of the Order of Australia and a Kentucky colonel. Were,
of course talking about Tommy Emmanuel. Here's Tommy's story of
(00:30):
how he discovered music and himself. We'll be playing his
music throughout the entire piece.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
The musician's prayer is beautiful because it says, make me
a hollow read from which the fifth of self has
been blown. In other words, get rid of me and
all my crap, my ego, my pride, my need for acceptance,
or any of that. Get rid of all that and
(01:00):
just make me an open channel. The love that is
in this universe may flow through me through the music,
and it may go out to other people and really
help them in their lives. Looking back on my childhood,
(01:26):
I just want to say that everything that was American
was the best in the world. It was the best music,
the best movies, the best cars, the best clothes, the
best guitars, the best everything came from this country. I
started playing guitar because my mother could play guitar a
(01:50):
bit and she was trying to teach herself how to
play Hawaiian music because it was very popular in the
early sixties in Australia Rule Australia, where we come from.
She wanted me to play rhythm for her, and she
knew I had rhythm in me because when I was little,
(02:11):
she would put my pram in front of the record player.
I'd be screaming my lungs out and she'd put music
on and I'd go straight to sleep. And then when
I was able to walk around and run around the house,
when she put the washing in the washing machine and
pulled the lever at the side and the machine and
ku kuk kuk kum ku kunk kuk, I came and
(02:34):
danced with the washing machine. And sometimes I fell asleep
leaning against the washing machine. So she knew there was
something going on in me that could only be satisfied
by rhythm and groove and stuff like that. So she
got me a guitar when I turned four, and showed
(02:54):
me how to put my fingers on the cords. And
she said to me, thirty five five years later, she said,
it was like a miracle. I got the guitar in
the morning and in the afternoon, her and I played
a couple of songs together, and she said, I played
the time perfectly, I understood how the song worked, and
(03:16):
we had fun playing together. And she just kept encouraging
me and showing me new chords and new songs. And
then the rest of my family took up instruments and
we became a family band. By the time I was
five and almost six, we were already playing music festivals
and coming out as the emmanual family band kind of thing.
(03:41):
And what we played was music that we heard on
the radio. It was Hawaiian music, instrumental, surfy kind of music.
There was a band from England called The Shadows, and
they were the biggest influence on everybody in those days.
But as a musician, my life really changed when I
heard Chad Atkins.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Here's a turne written by the Las Indios Tapagerius. The
boys from Brazil that found a guitar out in the
jungle didn't know what it was. They watched it for
a month or so and it didn't explode, so they
took it home and learned to play it. That's what
they said. Anyway, I believe them. Ju They wrote this
(04:24):
tone and it must have one million notes. I've never
counted them. I'm afraid to. I don't think I could
play it if I counted it.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
I knew that that's what I wanted to do. I
wanted to play like that. I'd hadn't a clue what
it was or how to do it. But that's what
changed my life. I knew exactly where I belonged. I
knew that I had to be a concert player. I
had not a clue how it was going, how I
was going to get there. I spent all my teen
(05:09):
years soaking up every record that I could find. I
remember when I turned sixteen, I bought myself Carol King's
Tapestry album. I bought Don McLean's American Pie, Gordon Lightfoot's albums.
People turned me on to Ray Charles and Oscar Pedison
(05:29):
and jazz music, and I discovered Where's Montgomery and people
like that? Right, that was good for me, and I
spent a good twenty years in the trenches. I had
to play in bands, I had to entertain people in
bars and places where people didn't listen. All that so
(05:49):
I could eat and pay a rent. And I had
songs in movies. I wrote music themes for TV shows
I did. I did game shows, playing with orchestra, play
with a string quartet. I played with a jazz band.
I was a drummer in a band. I was a
record producer. I did everything that you can imagine that
(06:13):
a person can do in my home country. So I
knew that in order for me to be really inspired
and challenged, I had to go where people did everything
a lot better, and that was here in America. I
came to America the first time in nineteen eighty to
(06:33):
visit chedd Atkins, my hero, and he said to me,
then this is where you belong. You should be here
in Nashville. And I just kept coming back and kept
coming back. Personally, I got into drinking like some of
(06:56):
my family members, you know, took uppers and down a
and all that sort of stuff, and did all that
stuff that most people do until I crashed and burned
too many times. I found a better way to live.
I found salvation.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Really.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
I was raised in the church by my mother and father,
but I never believed in the church, you know, probably
because I met way too many hypocrites. So I have
no desire to be a religious person and follow one
particular path. When people talk about God, most people go, oh,
(07:39):
I don't want to talk about that, But you can
look at it like this, Okay, So because I'm a
drunk and a drug addict in my body and in
my spirit, I go to God a group of drunks,
or good orderly direction, or the gift of desperation. There's
a few ways of saying the word. But I had
(08:01):
to learn to surrender. I had to let go of
my pride, my ego, which is what had been ruling
me all my life, you know, And so I had
to find a way of believing that there was a
power greater than myself that could restore me to sanity,
(08:23):
to normal. And that's what's happened, and it continues every day.
So I definitely have a big faith in a higher power.
And that's the way I believe it's meant to be.
We find out what works for us, you know, it
(08:45):
has to be honest and it has to be real.
So the proof to me that my higher power is
working for me and I can trust it is the
fact that I woke up this morning. A. I didn't
feel like drinking. B I didn't need to change how
(09:06):
I felt. I was happy, in my own skin. I'm
happy how I feel today. I don't need to alter
my thinking or my you know. And that to me
is a miracle, because I was at the point where
I would wake up at four o'clock in the morning
(09:27):
and start drinking, you know. Then I'd sleep again, then
I'd wake up at midday and start drinking again, and
I was going to die. That's where I was at.
And it's a miracle that I survived and that I'm
here in such good health today. There's simplicity in my life.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Now, you know.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
So I'm really really grateful, And a special thanks to
Jesse Edwards and to Monty Montgomery for the work on
this story, and thanks to Tommy Emmanuel. And go to
YouTube and just google Tommy's name and just listen to
the way he plays the guitar. It's like nothing you've
(10:09):
ever heard. Somewhere over the Rainbow was my introduction to
him at a club in Nashville, and I couldn't believe
what I heard or saw, and have been a fan
ever since. And my goodness, his struggles, he was very
open and very frank about them, with alcohol, with his pride,
with ego, and then he found God or a higher
power as he put it. And now there's a simplicity,
(10:31):
he said, in my life. And you could hear a
peace in his life. Tommy Emmanuel virtuoso guitarist and a
heck of a storyteller. His story here an Hour American
Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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