One of the greatest living acoustic guitarists, Tommy Emmanuel often plays the bass, melody and lead parts at the same time. He will perform June 5 and 6 at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center. Courtesy photo

“If there’s one guitar player that everyone must see in concert at least once in their lifetime, it’s Tommy Emmanuel,” praised a Newsweek magazine article. “He’s a guitar player’s guitar player who captivates audiences for hours as a one-man show. Just him and his guitar.”

How great is the Australian guitar virtuoso?

“If there’s anyone who can shred on acoustic guitar with jaw-dropping effect, it’s Tommy Emmanuel,” raved Guitar World. “Imagine Chet Atkins with the testosterone of Eddie Van Halen,” praised guitar legend Steve Vai.

Widely considered one of the greatest living acoustic guitarists, Emmanuel fuses elements from blues, country, rock, classical and Spanish music, often playing the bass, melody and lead parts at the same time as a one-man band.

Emmanuel made his Maui debut in 2017. He will perform June 5 and 6 at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center.

Performing solo here, Emmanuel loves the total freedom of being on stage by himself.

“I can play whatever I want,” he said. “I decide what I’m going to start with and take it from there. I draw from a repertoire of original songs or I can play a Beatles’ song or whatever people like. I like the show to be spontaneous.”

YouTube concert videos demonstrate how he enthralls audiences. There’s a clip of a 2013 show in Shanghai, China, where fans are ecstatic singing along to the Beatles’ covers Emmanuel often plays. One young fan seems so moved he has tears in his eyes.

“It’s like that a lot, especially in Asian countries,” Emmanuel said. “I’ll play a song and the whole audience sings the melody. It’s incredible.”

With no formal training, Emmanuel taught himself guitar as a child, playing along with his parents’ records. A professional musician since the age of 6, he began living out of a station wagon, playing with his siblings in bands around Australia, including time as the Midget Surfaris, capitalizing on the ’60s surf music phenomenon.

“My father came up with the name when The Surfaris came out with ‘Wipe Out,'” he explained. “I used to play the drum solo. As we were kids, he came up with the brilliant idea of calling us the Midget Surfaris. We sold everything, went on the road and went broke pretty quickly.”

His life changed at the age of 8 when he heard legendary guitarist Chet Atkins play the song “Windy and Warm” on the radio.

“It was so exciting,” he recalled. “It was a moment that lit a fire under me.”

Absorbing the guitar styles of Merle Travis, Les Paul and Django Reinhardt, Atkins transformed them into a unique fingerpicking style of his own.

Emmanuel was mesmerized and spent countless hours trying to master complex fingerpicking techniques. Once when he was stumped about how to create a particular harmonic effect, Atkins appeared to him in a dream demonstrating how to do it.

“I was about 17 at that time and I had been trying so hard to figure out how Chet played these harmonics,” he recalled. “I had a dream and Chet came out in a tuxedo and played this song with all the harmonics, and I saw it as clear as a bell. When I got up the next morning, I remembered the dream, grabbed a guitar and figured it out. One day I couldn’t do it and it was a total mystery to me, and the next day I could do it like I’d been doing it for years.”

In time he would meet Atkins and record the Grammy-nominated “The Day Finger Pickers Took Over the World” album with him.

“I got a letter from him and that was the greatest thrill of my life,” he said. “When I got to Nashville the first time in 1980 I called him and he said, ‘Do you want to pick a little?’ It was beautiful. It was like he knew what I was going to do before I did it.”

His hero once called Emmanuel one of the greatest players on the planet, and he is one of five people ever to be named a Certified Guitar Player by Atkins.

Some years later, Emmanuel began recording with former Rolling Stone bassist Bill Wyman, and his band The Rhythm Kings. Wyman has heard Emmanuel play a Merle Travis tune.

“Bill calls me and asks, ‘Can you come and play like Merle for me?’ I played on a track and Bill said, ‘Why don’t you play on the rest of it.’ I ended up playing on the whole album. Then we did another album, and I toured with him as the opening act. It was a great experience.”

Other rock stars he’s opened for include Eric Clapton, who invited him on a tour of Australia in 1990.

His latest album, “Live at the Sydney Opera House,” features 15 brilliant tracks, including “El Vaquero,” an homage to Atkins, and an astonishing “Beatles Medley” (“She’s a Woman,” “Please Please Me,” “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” “Day Tripper” and “Lady Madonna”), which segues into “Classical Gas.” Premier Guitar praised that it “reminds listeners that his fingerpicking is in a stratum all its own.”

“I love playing for people and changing their world through the magic of music,” he said. “I like to constantly surprise people. There’s no greater thrill for an artist than to play to a new audience who have never seen you before.”

Emmanuel will play the MACC’s McCoy Studio Theater on June 5 and 6. Tickets are $59 and $75 for VIP meet and greet, plus applicable fees.