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WHEELING - Hailed as "one of the best acoustic guitarists in the world" by NPR's World Cafe, Tommy Emmanuel got his start at the age of 6, when he first began touring his native Australia with his family's band. As a teenager, he earned a reputation as a highly sought after sideman and session player, and by his early 20s, Emmanuel was playing on chart-topping hits and performing with acts like Air Supply and Men at Work.
Emmanuel brings his amazing guitar and showman skills to the stage of the Capitol Theatre in Wheeling today, Friday, Aug. 14.
Doors open at 6 p.m. The show begins at 7 p.m. Tickets can be purchased at capitoltheatrewheeling.com, 304 233-7000 or the WesBanco Arena box office prior to the show.
Inspired in part by his hero, Chet Atkins (who would later become a friend, mentor and collaborator), Emmanuel stepped out on his own as a solo artist in 1979, releasing the first in a string of acclaimed instrumental albums that would make him an unlikely celebrity in his home country and beyond. Adkins included Emmanuel in the group of only six players designated as a Certified Guitar Player.
In the decades that followed, he would go on to headline everywhere from the Sydney Opera House to Carnegie Hall; tour with luminaries like Eric Clapton and John Denver; win a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Arrangement; perform for a televised audience of more than two billion at the Sydney Olympics; and collaborate with a who's who of fellow guitar greats, including Les Paul, Mark Knopfler, Joe Walsh, Richard Thompson, Jason Isbell and Billy Strings.
Recorded in just four days, Emmanuel's latest album, "Living In The Light," stands as the most daring -- and most rewarding -- collection in the globetrotting fingerpicker's remarkable catalog, fusing his pop, jazz, classical and roots influences into a virtuosic masterwork as exhilarating as it is intimate.