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Kalamazoo State
9/26/2009 8:00 PM at Tommy Emmanuel
404 S. Burdick, Kalamazoo, Michigan 49007
Cost: Reserved Seating $27.50 in advance, $30 day of show
Two-time Grammy nominee Tommy Emmanuel has a professional career that spans over four decades and continues to intersect with some of the finest musicians throughout the world. A household name in his native Australia, Tommy has garnered hundreds of thousands of loyal fans worldwide. Tommy’s unique style - he calls it simply "finger style" - is akin to playing guitar the way a pianist plays piano, using all ten fingers. Guitar legend Chet Atkins was one of the first to inspire Emmanuel to pick up the guitar as a child. Decades later, Atkins himself became one of Emmanuel’s biggest fans.
Emmanuel’s music and life are legendary in Australia. He began playing guitar at age 4, by learning to play by ear without any formal instruction. Emmanuel and his older brother Phil were child prodigies, starting their professional career in the 1960s. By the age of six, Tommy was already working as a professional musician. Shortly after his father’s death in 1966, the Emmanuel family was approached by Australian country music star Buddy Williams, who took the family on the road until they were forced by the Australian child welfare department to stop traveling and go to regular school. During these years, Tommy was playing in "The Trailblazers" (with siblings Chris on drums and Virginia on slide guitar) on weekends. He and his siblings worked hard to create the family’s sole income for several years. In his early teens, Tommy moved to Sydney to pursue a professional career as a guitarist, playing in clubs all over the city. During the mid 70s through the early ’80s, he joined one of the decade’s biggest, Dragon, recorded thousands of commercial "jingles" and played on recordings for Air Supply, Men at Work and dozens of other popular artists.
We’ve heard from many of you wishing that Tommy Emmanuel would perform here after seeing him recently on PBS, so don’t miss your chance to see him live, here at the State Theatre.
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