I had a dream where Chet came out with his red guitar, and he showed me how

Tommy Emmanuel was just 11 when his father died. In the aftermath, he found solace in the music of Chet Atkins, a guitar hero who would become, in effect, a surrogate father.

“My father had just passed away, and I would live inside Chet's albums. He was my world,” the acoustic guitar marvel tells Guitar Player.

But listening to Atkins' music was not enough. Emmanuel wanted to reach the man who had given him so much comfort, and so the young Australian guitarist wrote to his hero.

“I wrote a letter telling him that I was his big fan in Australia, and that I was trying to play like him,” he continues. “He wrote back and sent me a nice photograph, and we stayed in touch.”

Atkins remained a constant presence in Emmanuel's thoughts. The young guitarist was particularly fascinated by the way Atkins could make his electric guitar sound almost like a harp, weaving harmonics and natural notes together to create something that seemed, to Emmanuel, almost impossible to reproduce.

“Chet Atkins totally pioneered that sound, and he was the first to record it,” Emmanuel says. “I was 16 when I first heard it, and I couldn't figure out the technique.”

The answer came to Emmanuel in a dream.

“I had a dream where Chet came out with his red guitar, and he showed me how,” he says. “When I woke up the next morning, I got my guitar and I figured it out by remembering the dream. It was as if my subconscious worked it out and told my conscious self how to do it.”

The technique involves reaching the picking hand over the fretboard and pinching out harmonics by placing the index finger at a harmonic location on the same string as a fretted note below, then plucking with the thumb — all while incorporating natural notes on other strings.

It is a demanding technique, one that requires the player to make several things happen at once while maintaining enough control to allow every note to speak. Emmanuel eventually heard Lenny Breau — whom Atkins discovered and championed in the 1960s — perform it and realized just how far the technique could be taken.

“Lenny took it to a level that no one else has reached ever since,” he says.

“It is a beautiful technique, and the key is making sure the harmonic and natural notes ring out with bell-like qualities together. When you do it at speed, the ear shouldn't know which one is which. They should all blend together.

“The further your thumb is away from your index finger when you pluck down, the more note you'll get out of the harmonic. You want the string to speak, but if your index finger and thumb are too close together you'll choke the sound out of the harmonic.

“You've got to concentrate. It requires great strength in your left hand to hold down positions with real control and clarity.”

Emmanuel uses the technique liberally in his performance of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” And as he explains, there is no shortcut to mastering it.

“You've got to practice until your hand aches like hell,” Emmanuel says. “Many players don't sound clear, like a bell. They sound fuzzy from being too focused on the right hand without having a strong enough foundation from the left hand.”

All the while, Atkins remained at the top of Emmanuel's mind. Seven years after first contacting the guitar master, the young guitarist found another way to reach him.

“When I was about 18, a friend recorded me playing in his lounge room, and sent the tape to Chet. I got a mysterious letter out of the blue from Chet that included his office address and phone number. It said, ‘When you come to America, call me, and we'll get together.’ I couldn't believe it.”

Emmanuel eventually made the journey to America, relocating from Australia to Nashville in 1997. Two years later, Atkins honored him with the title of Certified Guitar Player, recognizing his lifetime contribution to the art of fingerpicking.

For Emmanuel, the moment represented something far more profound than a professional accolade. The man whose records had once given solace to a grieving 11-year-old was now standing before him, acknowledging him as one of the world's great fingerstyle guitarists.

“I was stunned and so moved by this gesture of appreciation from my hero,” Emmanuel wrote on Facebook. “And as he handed it to me, he said, ‘Don't let your kids play with it, they'll drop it on their toes!’

“It was a great night in my life. I played ‘Guitar Boogie’ with its composer, Arthur Smith, ‘Windy and Warm’ with Chet and Paul Yandell, a spirited set with my brother, Phil, and finished the night out jamming with all my pals at the Chet Convention. Ahhh, those were the days!”

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