Guitar legend brings heart and humor to Logan
He may come from the land down under, but his ability is at the top of his field.
Tuesday night, Grammy nominated jazz guitarist Tommy Emmanuel came to the Caine Lyric Theater for an evening of finger-picking music.
His first time to Logan, Emmanuel played to a sold out crowd, which forced some late comers, including business junior Michael Parker, to sit in the foyer for the first half of the show.
Parker, who plays the guitar himself, had never heard of Emmanuel, but said that even though he couldn’t see him, his music sounded good.
“I can hear him pick out. He must be really, really fast with his hands; he plays cool stuff. He must be beating his drums and hashing up his guitars quite a bit. I can’t see what he’s doing, but it sounds really good.”
With a unique blend of humor and fast-paced guitar picking, Emmanuel kept his audience enthralled.
“If you’ld like to sing along, please don’t,” Emmanuel said to the audience before playing Guitar Boogie. “You’ll ruin the whole thing.”
Moving between fast and slow paced songs with no particular order, Emmanuel seemed to focus intensely on each song he played, partly because of all the improvisation he did.
“I was going to improvise,” Emmanuel said, “but I think I’ll just make some stuff up.”
Playing strictly acoustic guitar, Emmanuel’s styles were diverse enough to include old American folk songs Yankee Doodle Dandy and Dixieland (which he played at the same time), a song about the working man blues. He also played The Journey, which focused on his early experiences performing among the Australian aborigines. During the show, Emmanuel used his hands and head to beat out rhythms on his guitar.
“I’m a songwriter who plays guitar; I’m a melody player,” Emmanuel said. “All my songs have a story and they all come from a real life experience. I don’t just sit around and say I better write a new song today.”
Emmanuel said that for him, fame and fortune didn’t matter.
“I believe if you stay true to your gift, if your true to what you’re meant to do, the money will come anyway,” he said. “The pursuit of fame and fortune gets you nowhere. A friend of mine wrote a song and there’s a line that says, ‘fame is just a momentary curse.’ The way I think a career should run is it doesn’t end, it just keeps going up and up and up.”
Emmanuel even joked that he wanted to be playing his guitar as they put him in a pine box – a fitting end to a musical life that began when his mother gave him a cowboy guitar when he was four.
“I’ve spent my whole life playing music and entertaining people. I never wanted to do anything else,” Emmanuel said.
Emmanuel uses a style which he calls “finger style” – a style akin to playing a guitar similar to the way a pianist plays a piano.
Particularly inspired by jazz entertainer, Chet Atkins, Emmanuel launched a solo career in the mid ’80’s. Since that time he has produced four platinum and three gold albums.
“Playing the guitar is much more than a career for me,” Emmanuel said. “It’s a passion…my life. The best thing in the world is to make people happy and bring them together through my music. Because I’m touring so much these days, the whole world has become my home.”
At 49, Emmanuel leads a vigorous schedule that includes 320 performances on at least four different continents every year.
Commenting on his favorite types of music, Emmanuel said that he has a great love of all music.
“From Mozart to Billy Joel, I try to keep my heart open to all kinds of music. The only music that I don’t like is music that is based on negativity or that has a negative message. A musician’s job is to throw out positive energy,” Emmanuel said.
“I hope God will keep my body fit and healthy as long as possible.”
-mattgo@cc.usu.edu