Tommy Emmanuel

Tommy Emmanuel Spills the Beans to Tony Polecastro!

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• published: 23 Feb 2016
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Love this Tommy Emmanuel interview? Check out more of Tony's guitar icon interviews: https://tonypolecastro.com/paul-reed-smith-tony-polecastro-talk-acoustics-1-of-3/ http://tonypolecastro.com/pete-huttlinger-interview-with-tony-polecastro/ https://tonypolecastro.com/chris-martin-tony-polecastro-interview/ https://tonypolecastro.com/tony-polecastro-bob-taylor-interview/ How Tommy Emmanuel Checks Out Guitars Hey guys, Tony Polecastro here from The Acoustic Letter and Tony’s Acoustic Challenge, and today is a great day. We have Tommy Emmanuel here in the studio. He just got done with a soundcheck, he’s playing up the street, and he took some time out for us to come and chat some guitar, so we are going to chat guitar. Tommy Emmanuel: Our favorite subject. Tony Polecastro: Our favorite subject. Tommy Emmanuel: Exactly. Tony Polecastro: To be quite honest with you, it was very cool. We went over to soundcheck, and I walked in and you were in back playing one of Kevin Kopp’s guitars, a local builder. Tommy Emmanuel: Yeah. I love Kevin’s guitars. Tony Polecastro: Immediately … They’re fantastic. Tommy Emmanuel: They are. Tony Polecastro: Immediately, I noticed you were holding the guitar, you were playing it, but you weren’t just playing, you were digging in. You were checking it out. Tommy Emmanuel :Oh, absolutely. Tony Polecastro: You were giving it the run-through. Tommy Emmanuel :Whenever I play a guitar, especially one that I’m interested in, if a guitar has a good sound, has a good feel to it, then I’ll want to play it for a while, you know? I don’t want to just pick it up and go, “Oh yeah, it sounds good,” and move on. I want to get to know this baby. Tony Polecastro: Absolutely, absolutely. Tommy Emmanuel :The same as your D35 here. That’s a great sounding Martin. Tony Polecastro: Thank you. Tommy Emmanuel: I could play that thing all day. Tony Polecastro: We can negotiate. Also, our viewers, we’ve had some questions, speaking of guitars. We’ve had some questions about Maton guitars, and that is your primary stage instrument. Tommy Emmanuel Talks About Maton Guitars Tommy Emmanuel :It is, yeah. I’ve been playing Maton guitars since 1960, which is a long time. My first real good guitar was a Maton. It was electric, a solid body, called a Master Sound. I didn’t really get into acoustics until later on. I started on the electric guitar, and then I moved to the acoustic later on in life. The guitars that I travel with, that I play all my concerts with, this is my main one here. It’s called a EBG808, and it has the Ap5 pickup system in it, which is everything on board here. Six individual piezos here, and a microphone. I’ve done a bit of hot rodding here, as you can see, I’ve got a little gaff tape holding stuff in here, but I wanted to get the mic free of the body and just hanging in mid air, so I’m pointing like that. That’s what I did there. I did it in a bit of a hurry the other day before I left to go on tour, so it’s holding together with gaff, but normally the Maton comes with a microphone, and it goes up inside a piece of foam, foam rubber stuff, and it just sits there like that. It’s a beautiful placement. This particular model, which I have 2 of these on the road, this is an indigenous Australian maple called a Queensland Maple. It’s a mahogany neck, and a spruce top, rosewood fingerboard, and saddle. These guitars are really well-made. This is a custom shop model, made by a guy named Andy Allen. It’s got a good acoustice sound. Read more at: http://tonypolecastro.com/tony-polecastro-tommy-emmanuel-talk-maton/