Tommy was born in New South Wales, Australia. He received his first guitar in 1959 (at age four) and was taught by his mother to accompany her, playing lap steel guitar. By age six, he was a working professional musician after his father created a family band, sold their home, and took his family on the road. Tommy would go on tour with country music star Buddy Williams and record several albums with Buddy Williams in the early 1970s.

In his teen years, Tommy won a string of talent contests, and by the late 1970s, he was playing drums with his brother in the group Goldrush. He gained further prominence in the late 1970s as the lead guitarist in the Southern Star Band and joined the lineup of the leading rock group Dragon.

Tommy performed live in Sydney at the closing ceremony of the Summer Olympics in 2000, and in June 2010, he was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia. In 2019, MusicRadar listed him as the best acoustic guitarist in the world.