Australian percussive acoustic-guitar wizard Tommy Emmanuel has played some huge gigs in his life. But few can have been more impactful than the time he and Martin Taylor entertained inmates at a high-security prison.
Emmanuel has headlined Nashville’s iconic Ryman Auditorium and Paris’ Olympia, where the Beatles enjoyed a historic 18-day residency in 1964. He has even upstaged Les Paul on his own turf — though he later lived to regret it. But in a new interview, the guitarist has reflected on one of the most unique audiences ever to experience his virtuosic yet calming presence.
“I’ve played to 15 inmates who are in there for life, for murder,” he tells Zakk Kuhn. “They were allowed to watch YouTube on Thursday afternoons for 45 minutes, and they all chose me to watch. So the prison system asked if I would come and meet with them. What a weird thing to think. But it was so wonderful.”
The first encounter came when Emmanuel was being filmed for an interview. As the cameras started rolling, Kuhn jovially asked him about his favorite film. Emmanuel answered The Shawshank Redemption, praising its “dialogue, story, and happy ending” — but the guitarist’s prison experience would soon go far beyond discussing a movie about life behind bars.
I got into the third layer of security, and then all the alarms went off, and it was a lockdown.’
— Tommy Emmanuel
“A year later I came back with [guitarist] Martin Taylor,” he explains. “We were doing our swing music show, and we played to a much bigger group in an open space, and I can’t tell you the feeling of playing for these guys. We did about an hour set, and a big black guy came up afterward, and he just grabbed me in a bear hug, and he whispered in my ear, ‘We escaped for an hour.’ It was unbelievable.”
The prison, Emmanuel says, was San Quentin in California, the historic facility that has held inmates including Charles Manson and is the only prison in the state that houses a death row.
“There were four stages of security, and everyone was in there for life,” he recalls. “The first time I went in, I got into the third layer of security, and then all the alarms went off, and it was a lockdown; there was a fight between two gangs, and one guy was dead, stabbed to death right there. And I saw him. I saw blood everywhere. It was awful.”
The prison hospital was directly next to where Emmanuel was at that moment. “He was on a table, and he was wide open,” the guitarist says.
But the shocking incident didn’t stop the guitarist from going ahead with the performance.
They knew exactly what they wanted me to play. They had a list for me, and they were saying, ‘Can you please play this for us?’”
— Tommy Emmanuel
“I kept going because I knew there were 12 guys in that room down there that I wanted to meet,” he states. “I had good security, but the guy who did the murdering was in a one-man cage like an animal. He really looked like a wild animal, but I didn’t want to engage with him. He’d just taken a life.”
That would have been enough of a brush with mortality to make many musicians turn around. Emmanuel is glad he didn’t.
“The guy who’d been there the longest was the guy who really advocated for me to come there,” the guitarist explains. “His name was Marty, and he gave me a beautiful painting that he’d done. It was the story of Jesus, and it was all in little pictures, and he so carefully drew it and gave it to me.
“They knew exactly what they wanted me to play,” he continues. “They’d already got in a conference about it. So I had to play ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow,’ ‘Lady Madonna,’ and ‘Guitar Boogie.’ They had a list for me, and they were saying, ‘Can you please play this for us?’”
It was an eye-opening experience from start to finish — and certainly very different from Emmanuel’s typical gig day.
He just grabbed me in a bear hug, and he whispered in my ear, ‘We escaped for an hour.’ It was unbelievable.”
— Tommy Emmanuel
“Sometimes Marty would speak up and say, ‘Would you mind showing us how you do that?’” he goes on. “They were just quiet-speaking guys who’d been in there a long time. The guards knew them very well, and there was a feeling of peace and collaboration in that room. It was quite different from what just happened outside. But that’s life for you.”
By now, Emmanuel is used to having unique fans. He has been gifted a guitar by a dying fan and once received a guitar lesson from Chet Atkins in a dream. His career has been anything but straightforward — and even by the standards of one of acoustic guitar’s most extraordinary performers, serenading murderers at San Quentin was an experience unlike any other.
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