In Conversation With… Tommy Emmanuel

We interview Tommy Emmanuel about his new album, UK tour announcement and more. 

Hi Tommy! How’s your quarantine been going? 

Well I’ve been getting a lot of work done, filming…

And releasing a new record!

That’s right (laughs). The album came out a couple of days ago, last Friday.

How did it feel choosing the songs for the record, it must have been hard to choose? 

Well I had six new ones that I wrote last year, so I wanted them on there. The rest of them, my original album called ‘Only’ came out in 2000, so 20 years ago. I’ll never own the rights to that album, so I thought they’re all my songs, but I don’t own the rights to that performance, so it would be good for me to revisit those songs, because I play some of them in the show still because people love them. So, I got a chance to revisit them and gave them a different feel. 

It must be special to own them in your own right. A weird trip down memory lane but also rooted in the present?

I think that as we grow and change and get more experienced, we see everything differently, we see things differently, we hear things differently. That all works in our favour, I have enough songs for another two of those albums, so that’s just the first one.

I guess a lot of the songs’ meaning will also have evolved over time?

Well yeah, when I play a song I’ve written a long time ago, sometimes I’m startled by how well they’re constructed (laughs), it must have been a good day for me. It’s hard to remember writing all those songs, I can kind of remember writing ‘Lewis and Clark’ but the song ‘Angelina,’ I wrote that when when she was really little and she’s just turned twenty one, a couple of days ago. Trying to remember where and when I wrote that, I just can’t. I know where I was when I wrote ‘Those Who Wait.’ I was living in a little cottage outside Windsor in England, that’s where we used to live. It was easy to choose the material because I knew which songs I wanted to revisit and I had a twenty six song list and we ended up cutting twenty four. 

It still must have taken a while to go through all of them. Then, with the new tracks, one of my favourite ones was ‘The Wide Ocean,’ can you talk about that song. 

Oh sure. Well I wrote that song, I travelled to Beijing to start a Chinese tour. I did a 15 day tour, a different city every night in China. It was amazing. I got into Beijing after a long night from New York and got to my hotel and got my guitar out. It just sounded magic to me, that guitar and that room. I started working on that idea and I finished in about twenty minutes. I record it on my iPhone in Voice Memos. I played it to my wife and my daughter back here in San Jose, I said to Clara my wife, ‘play this to Rachel’ – she’s four years old – ‘and ask her what this song’s about and what this music’s about.’ She listened to it and she said ‘it sounds like the wide ocean.’ I said ‘that’s exactly it.’ 

I like doing that because a child has no filters. We all have filters because we’re adults. She’ll just say what she thinks and what it says to her and that’s important to me.

Have you got a lot of inspiration from your travels then? I know you’ll be back in the UK next year.

Totally, people I meet, things I see. When the weather is nice in England, I don’t think there’s any place on the planet like it, it’s extraordinary. The beauty, the history… It’s amazing. When you live there, it’s too easy to take it for granted, but when you come and go like I do, you can really take it in. Sometimes, you read a novel or you see a movie, and there’s just something in there that really strikes a chord with you and away you go. I can’t write really unless I feel inspired by something. 

Sometimes you’re really driven and active and you’re playing all the time, other times you just don’t feel like it, you’re thinking about something else. I write a lot and I play a lot when I can, but I do go through periods when I wander around in the desert waiting for an idea to leap on. I’ve got to be shaken up emotionally to get the good stuff out.

You grew up in Australia, you’ve lived in England and now you’re in San Jose. Do you feel like your music has changed and evolved with every place you’ve lived in?

I go where I need to be, it’s important for me to be here because my youngest daughter is starting school here and this is where she’ll be, so I have to be here for her when I can. I’ve got my two daughters in England and my granddaughter. I’m probably not going to live in Australia ever again in my life, that’s not my choice but just because of family. It’s still my home inside me but I like being here in America and I like being in England.

We have the date in the diary next year for your UK tour, so what’s happening in the interim?

I’m in the middle of a film project, so I’m sitting here this morning with my guitar looking for an idea to write something today. I’ll go take a walk soon and breathe some air.

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Final Few

If there was a biopic written about your life what would be the opening track? Heartbreak Hotel (laughs). Yeah, I’ve had my heart broken so many times. 

What record would you bring to a desert island? Well, I’d probably choose James Taylor’s ‘Never Die Young.’

Complete the sentence…

Music is… everything.

Tommy Emmanuel is… hopeful.