THE world only ever received one album of collaboration between brothers Phil and Tommy Emmanuel, arguably two of the greatest Australians to ever strap on a guitar.
The 1995 album Terra Firma, with its cover depicting the brothers as two cheeky schoolboys, was an instant classic for anyone who appreciates scintillating fretwork.
Older brother Phil died in 2018 from an asthma attack aged 65, tragically just a month after the death of their sister Virginia, 69.
But Tommy says there were formative plans to record a second Emmanuel brothers album. On a 90-minute car trip from Townsville Airport to Virginia's funeral in Ingham in far north Queensland, the pair discussed a future project.
It would be last time they saw each other.
"On that trip I sensed Phil wanted to put the duo back together and work together again, and I felt the timing would have been really good the following year," Tommy recalls over Zoom from his home in Nashville.
"I said to him, 'Let's think about how we want to do it and how do we want to start, because I think we should start in Germany and really work our show up in England and America and then finish the tour in Australia'.
"Then we started talking about songs and all that. I definitely had him interested in doing the duo again, even if it was just for one more world tour.
"He was in a great mood and ready to stand and deliver, I think."
Even five years on from Phil's death, it's clear Tommy was immensely proud of his big brother.
"His legacy is there, his music is there, there's lots of videos," he says. "There's a whole generation of young people he's nurtured and inspired and mentored."
While we never received a sequel to Terra Firma, Tommy Emmanuel fans can look forward to the upcoming release of Accomplice Two.
The original Accomplice was released in 2018 and featured duets with the likes of Jason Isbell, Mark Knopfler, Rodney Crowell and Amanda Shires.
In between tours last year Emmanuel laid down tracks live with Billy Strings, Michael McDonald, Jamey Johnson and Raul Malo for Accomplice Two.
The first single is a rollicking cover of Townes Van Zandt's White Freight Liner Blues with the fresh-faced Molly Tuttle, whose record Crooked Tree recently won the Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album.
"It's warts and all and how I like it," Emmanuel says of Accomplice Two, which is due for release on April 28.
"I don't like spending time trying to make everything perfect. It's never gonna be perfect. I don't have a lot of equipment and I don't sit here programming, I have no idea how to do that.
"This project, like most of the things I do, it's real people playing real instruments and they've gotta do it now."
It's a philosophy Emmanuel has lived by since he and his siblings - Phil (lead guitar), Virginia (slide guitar) and Chris (drums) formed The Emmanuel Quartet in the north-west NSW town of Gunnedah in the early '60s while they were still in primary school.
Their prodigal talents were eventually noticed by country star Buddy Williams, who famously took them on the road around Australia.
In the '70s Emmanuel, by then an adult, became a gun session guitarist and in 1979 he released his debut album From Out Of Nowhere.
By the '90s Emmanuel was Australia's most revered guitarist as he popularised instrumental music through his top-10 albums The Journey (1993) and Classical Gas (1995).
Emmanuel's virtuosity and unique finger-picking style, which adopts a pick on his right thumb, has also influenced a generation of guitarists.
Newcastle's own internationally-renown instrumental guitarist, Adam Miller, was a former student of Emmanuel's.
"It's been great witnessing him reach out into the world and build his audience," Emmanuel says. "That's what you have to do.
"In the early days, the '70s and '80s, most Australians were pretty afraid to go anywhere else, because a lot of people doubted we were at the same level as other people in other countries.
"I kept going to places like Los Angeles and New York and watched musicians play there and realised how good they are and it lit a fire in me.
"I always knew I wanted to do what I'm doing now, I knew I had to lift my game."
Since 2002 Emmanuel has lived in Nashville, using the music mecca as a base to regularly tour North and South America and Europe.
It also allows him to keep in touch with the grassroots level of music. Emmanuel regularly attends Nashville songwriter nights.
"When you hear people's songs and how good the writing is, it's a great inspiration to be around people like that," he says.
However, his love of Australia is eternal.
Due to the pandemic the 67-year-old hasn't toured his homeland since early 2019.
And when Emmanuel performs he still adheres to lessons he learnt watching Australian rock'n'roll originals Dave Bridge and Col Joy as a youngster in Gunnedah.
"They were the first real concerts I ever went to," he says.
"We were sitting in the crowd and Dave Bridge comes out to play and my mother immediately points out, 'See how he holds his head up? See how he smiles? How he has a nice suit on and his shoes are clean?'
"My mother was pointing all of this out to me."
Tommy Emmanuel returns to Newcastle's Civic Theatre on May 8.
