Thursday, December 3, 2009

Tommy Emmanuel: The Best Guitarist You've Never Heard Of

In one of the earlier episodes of Muzjiks, I mentioned Australian fingerpicking guitarist Tommy Emmanuel. I personally consider him the greatest guitar player of all time—yes, better than Hendrix, better than Clapton, better than Stevie Ray Vaughan. Admittedly, this is a controversial statement, but I'm not making it as a holier than thou kind of thing. If you listen to what Emmanuel does with the instrument (or, even better, watch), you will see the technical ability required to pull off what he does. However, Emmanuel isn't just fast fingers and some unconventional use of the guitar as a percussion instrument; he is able to hone these skills and compose beautiful melodic numbers with them.

So, now that I have this medium to provide visuals for what is discussed on air, I am posting a YouTube video of Tommy Emmanuel performing a cover of "Classical Gas." The reason I've chosen this particular song is not necessarily because it's his best song; rather, it showcases his virtuosity quite well and thereby illustrates my points. As an extra treat, I've also uploaded a Muzjiks favorite by Tommy Emmanuel entitled "Mombasa" so that you can get this man on your iPod and spread the word of his excellence to your friends.




Tommy Emmanuel: "Mombasa"

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

So true Steve.

Anonymous said...

His Guitar Boogie piece is what kind of inspired me to take up on guitar, actually. He plays that thing like a drum and a bass and a lead all at the same time and its just so incredible how comprehensive his sound is.

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