Tommy Emmanuel Celebrates Chet Atkin's 100th Birthday With 'Mr. Guitar (Live' Video

06-20-2024 1:44 PM EDT

Endless Road: 20th Anniversary Edition cover art

(SRO) In honor of what would have been Chet Atkins' 100th birthday today (June 20), Grammy Award winner Tommy Emmanuel has released a newly shot video of "Mr. Guitar (Live)." It's a song that Tommy wrote in honor of the legendary and influential guitar pioneer.

The video was filmed at Tommy's home outside of Nashville, TN and directed by Joshua Britt & Neilson Hubbard for Neighborhoods Apart and it was premiered yesterday (June 19) by The Bluegrass Situation.

The original studio recording of "Mr. Guitar" appeared on Tommy Emmanuel's 1997 collaborative album with Chet Atkins titled The Day Finger Pickers Took Over the World.

A live version the song, "Mr. Guitar (Live)," recorded in St. Louis, is featured as a live bonus track on Tommy's album, Endless Road: 20th Anniversary Edition, released May 28, 2024.

There's also a new version of "Mr. Guitar" that Tommy recorded with Grammy-winning bluegrass fiddler Michael Cleveland. It appears on the multi-artist album We Still Can't Say Goodbye - A Musicians' Tribute to Chet Atkins, released March 15, 2024.

Emmanuel is an acoustic guitarist extraordinaire, composer, and global touring artist. He is also one of five people ever named a C.G.P. (Certified Guitar Player) by Chet Atkins, the innovator, songwriter, producer, record company executive, and visionary.

"Mentoring and encouraging people is something that Chet always did," Tommy says. "I try to do this thing with Gareth (Pearson), and I try to do the same with all young people. I encourage them to do things that I learned from Chet. I hope that somewhere somehow, I showed somebody something because of him that changed their life and made their life better. Cause he sure did that for me."