ALBUM REVIEW: Tommy Emmanuel and Friends Take Flight on ‘Accomplice Two’
Henry Carrigan
Posted On April 26, 2023
Tommy Emmanuel is a guitarist’s guitarist, and Accomplice Two is another master class in hot licks and crisp guitar stylings put on by Emmanuel and his “accomplices” — some of the best guitarists and string instrument musicians playing today. (Accomplice One came out in 2018 and featured Jason Isbell, Ricky Skaggs, and many more.) Emmanuel and company take flight from the first note and seldom come down from the sonic stratosphere.
Billy Strings joins Emmanuel on the first track for the sizzling hot medley “Doc’s Guitar/Black Mountain Rag”; the two trade lead runs as they burn up the frets in a breathtaking virtuoso guitar performance. These two dazzling fingerstyle pickers are sure having a good time playing off each other, and they egg each other on with exclamations and grunts of pleasure.
Hot Tuna’s Jorma Kaukonen and Emmanuel deliver a shuffling, bluesy interpretation of Roy Book Binder’s “Another Man Done a Full Go Around,” while Richard Smith, of the Richard Smith Trio and Hot Club of Nashville, and Emmanuel turn in a smoking hot jazz instrumental scamper on Emmanuel’s original “Son of a Gun.” Molly Tuttle’s impeccably crisp playing and crystalline high lonesome vocals drive the engine on the push-the-throttle-to-the-limit interpretation of Townes Van Zandt’s “White Freight Liner Blues.”
Tommy Emmanuel (photo by Simone Cecchett)
Yasmin Williams adds her magical cascading guitar stylings and lap tapping to another Emmanuel original, “Mombasa,” a shimmeringly lovely tune. Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams join forces with Emmanuel on Campbell’s jaunty “Everybody Loves You,” while Jerry Douglas lays down glimmering layers of dobro on the atmospheric Emmanuel original tune “Mama Knows.”
Emmanuel and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band breathe new life into “Tennessee Stud,” a song most often associated with Doc Watson since he and the Dirt Band turned in the now-classic version on their 1972 Will the Circle Be Unbroken album. Raul Malo and Emmanuel close out the album with a cinematic take on the classic American pop standard “Far Away Places.”
Accomplice Two showcases Emmanuel’s melodic range as he traverses the musical landscape from old time to bluegrass to jazz to pop, and he does so with effortlessness and grace, all the while having a blast with friends that throw back the licks as fast as he can pitch them.
Tommy Emmanuel’s Accomplice Two is out April 28 via CGP Sounds.
