“I’ve been called the Indiana Jones of the guitar world… I’m making this up as I go along!” laughs Tommy Emmanuel.

“I’ve just followed my instincts all the way. I’ve never really had any real or formal training; I’ve always thrown myself in at the deep end and seen if I can make it.”

The guitar virtuoso is considered a six string legend among those in the know. A master of hand-picked melody,Emmanuel’s shows are a mixture of blink-and-miss-it plucking and rhythmical theatrics played entirely on the guitar’s body.

He doesn’t tour with a band, and performances tend to leave audiences agape (and a little jealous!) at the sounds and fluid finger work he creates across just one instrument. A popular story in Emmanuel’s lore is the moment he shouted out, “Are there any guitar players in the house?” during a gig, to which someone hollered back, “We used to be!”

“I started to play that style in 1963 and worked at some of [influential guitarist and record producer] Chet Atkins’ arrangements. It just seemed to come to me. The more I heard, the more adventurous I got,” the Australian musician explains.

“It seemed that it was my destiny. I discovered I could write songs in my mid-teens and through the years I’ve developed my writing to be a big part of what I’m doing.

"I think that’s what sets you apart – there are a million better guitar players than me out there – but you’ve got to stand out playing your own songs your own way. Thank God for that, otherwise I’d be out of a job!”

Legend has it that Emmanuel first picked up a guitar at just four years of age, one of six children brought up in a musical household. The family upped sticks in the early 1960s to tour as The Emmanuel Quartet, his father acting as manager, and Emmanuel travelled across Australia playing gigs and living a troubadour’s life, aged just seven.

It was a lifestyle that thrilled Emmanuel, but didn’t exactly thrill the New South Wales Department of Education.

“I can still remember standing outside a phone booth as a child with my mother crying her eyes out begging [child welfare] to let us keep going, saying, ‘This is what my kids want to do and they’re getting an education’,” he says.

“We were getting correspondence school and my mother was my tutor.

"In the end, they forced us off the road.

"I was about halfway through my 15th year on the planet when I ran away from school because I knew what I wanted to do… what I am doing now. I still earn my living by touring. I’ve never done anything else and I’ve never really wanted to do anything else.”

Recently honoured as a Member of the Order of Australia, over the past 50 years he’s become a part of the country’s rich musical heritage.

His touring history reads like a who’s who of Down Under talent – John Farnham, Men At Work and Air Supply – and he’s shared the stage with everyone from Eric Clapton to John Denver and his own musical hero, Chet Atkins. He even played at Sydney’s 2000 Olympic Games opening ceremony to a global audience of nearly three billion.

“Ever since I was a kid I’ve enjoyed being on stage and it’s never really been because I had something to prove. It was more a case of, ‘Let’s get out and see how much fun we can have!’ and give people a good time at the same time,” he laughs.

“If people watch you flying a kite, they want to fly one too. It’s as simple as that – I get out there and start flying my kite and see if anyone wants to join me… and people always do.”

Tommy Emmanuel plays The Hove Centre on Tuesday, December 6, 7pm, £20, 0844 8471515.