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July 18, 2018

Jack Emerson - 1960 to 2003 Memorial - Praxis Records History - Our Favorite Band, Jason & the Scorchers, et.al.

 
even though i was kept away from all aspects of jack's life and death from his friends, my bandmate and jack's business partner,  i am deeply moved by Jason's tribute (not read until tonight).  i present this (fifteen years after the fact) for those who continue to love the music Jack released and the people's lives he affected  - including my own.  may he rest in peace.

 

Jack Emerson: 1960 to 2003

Jack Emerson, the pioneer, pillar, and international exporter of Nashville's rock 'n' roll/Americana community, passed on to his reward at his home, November 22, 2003.

Emerson, who died of a heart attack at age 43, leaves behind a legacy far richer than those who sold millions more records.

He was not just a musical pioneer and business entrepreneur; he was also a true modern Saint.

Without consciously trying, Jack brought out the best in all those around him, and always put the good of the community above his personal needs and wants. It will be impossible for me to not take a personal approach writing this memorial.

I would not be who I am as a performer or person had it not been for Jack. What's telling is that scores of others would say the same thing -- from hard-bitten music-biz attorneys to vibe-surfing singer-songwriters. Jack was the first person I connected with when I moved to Nashville off an Illinois hog farm in 1981.

I met him in a Nashville bar called Springwater. It was punk rock night and a Sex Pistols cover band was playing. Such was the abysmal depth of Music City's rock scene then. Somehow Jack and I struck up a conversation. Jack stated that he felt Nashville, with the right TLC, could become a rock 'n' roll recording and business center, and that he intended to get that happening.

He already had started his label, Praxis Records, out of his garage, and was preparing to release his first two 7-inch EPs: a compilation of Nashville punk bands called Another Side Of Nashville, and Our Favorite Band's Pink Cadillac.
I remember how another participant in the conversation laughed in his face. Jack was unfazed. With no malice intended, he calmly stated that fellow was simply wrong.

I, in turn, told Jack that I intended to make a band that could fuse modern rock's energy and aggression with American roots music's heritage and charm. Without even hearing me, right there on the spot, he offered to help me start a band!

He even offered to play bass until I could find a proper bassist. Back then Nashville was not exactly crawling with cowboy punk rock bass players, so this was of fundamental advantage to me.

Together we came up with the name for this phantom band: Jason & the Nashville Scorchers. With a young law student and friend of Jack's on guitar and the Sex Pistols cover band's singer on drums, Jack scored us two immediate gigs. One was opening for Carl Perkins at Vanderbilt (Jack was a student there and on the concert committee); the other was opening for the brilliant new Georgia band R.E.M., who would sleep on Jack's floor when they played Nashville.

At these gigs, Jeff Johnson and Warner Hodges saw me and offered to jump aboard the train. Jack switched over to manager, and in three months, with only his charm and enthusiasm as legal tender, we recorded and released our first E.P., Reckless Country Soul.


You have to remember that in those days, putting out a record was a serious and potentially expensive undertaking. On a shoestring, Jack pulled off the impossible. He would continue to do that for twenty more years. During those critical early days, Jack stayed consistently proactive. He never allowed events to shape him. He shaped events.

When no major labels would sign us, Jack, again using only his word and good intentions, orchestrated the recording of our finest work: Fervor, the mini-LP that permanently put us on the Americana music map.

As things heated up, Jack brought in Andy McLenon, his childhood friend and record Svengali, and Kay Clary, another Nashville kindred spirit.

Together they expanded Praxis Records into Praxis International (by God); in a few short years they radically altered, and, in fact, created the infrastructure of the Nashville rock and Americana community that exists to this day.

Praxis International became the management home for most of Nashville's rock and Americana exports in the 1980s.

The Sluggers released Over The Fence on Arista. Jason & the Scorchers recorded four records for EMI and A&M. The Georgia Satellites sold close to 2 million records and scored a massive hit with "Keep Your Hands To Yourself".

Praxis managed John Hiatt during his stint at A&M when he released his classic Bring The Family. The Questionnaires released Window To The World on EMI. Steve Forbert staged a dramatic return to form under their auspices.

As the '90s dawned, Praxis morphed into more of a record company, forging relationships with Island and BMG.

They released Shaver's finest work, 1993's Tramp On Your Street. Webb Wilder made his best records during that time, along with his movie Cornflicks. Praxis continued to find ways to release non-commercial but important artists such as Sonny Landreth.

By 1995, the main players at Praxis (Emerson, McLenon and Clary) decided to semi-retire the company, although they never dissolved it, or parted from the ideas it espoused. Jack then formed E-Squared Records with Steve Earle, recording Steve's album I Feel Alright on "Jack's credit card," says Earle.

During this time, most record-business insiders were terrified of Earle, but Jack saw the musical and personal potential. Steve's career went through a tremendous rejuvenation; once again, Jack was at the center of the storm.

E-Squared shared many Praxis traits, most importantly the willingness to take on left-of-center artists. Along with Earle's prolific mid-late '90s run, they also released albums by Marah, the V-Roys, Cheri Knight, Bap Kennedy and 6 String Drag.

During this time, Jack was also the executive producer of the soundtrack to You Can Count On Me, which won Best Picture honors at the Sundance Film Festival.

Though Emerson's influence on Americana/alt-country/roots-rock music is central, undeniable and permanent (he was a founding member of the Americana Music Association), I think Jack will be most remembered for the intangible philosophies and ideals he stood for. Those are rather high-minded words to use in these cynical times, but Jack had no cynicism.

He was a lover of music who became a music business player for all the right reasons. He had huge ambitions but no greed. With Jack, it was all about getting seemingly non-commercial music to normal folks. He understood and appreciated the importance of that work.

JWE, as many of his close friends called him, had a defined code of behavior from which he never wavered. For example, in the early '80s, many musicians and music people were heavily into drugs and narcissistic power games. Jack consistently espoused the ideal that you could rock like the devil without selling your soul to him.

He was anti-drug before that was cool, and he handled his business dealings as fairly and honestly as possible. He stressed to his artists the absolute importance of being connected to your audience.

"Don't sit in the dressing room after the show and play the rock star trip," he would advise. "Go out and meet your fans. Talk to them and get to know them. What you get back will be your best reward, and motivate you to tolerate all the road horrors."

Such words were a radical alternative to the self-absorption "me" trips so prevalent at the time. Those of us who knew Jack carry these ideals onto every stage and truck bed across this world.

If I had a dollar for every time I heard Jack use the word "positive," I could retire! Jack held all folks in the same regard, whether they were self-important record moguls or the office janitor. He somehow managed to find the humorous twist in bad news; then he'd smoke a cigar (and he hated smoke) when the news was good.

We never knew him to lose his temper. He stayed close to his teenage friends even when he became a world-class music executive. He carried malice toward none.

His longtime business partner and friend Andy McLenon summed it up: "He had no dark side."

At this time of year, many of us will see the old Jimmy Stewart classic It's A Wonderful Life. Jack Emerson was our George Bailey.
Author Jason Ringenberg


FROM: PETER GURALNICK

It was always about the music with Jack.

The first time I ever heard from him, almost exactly 20 years ago, he sent me a note about "the spirit" he and Andy had tried to capture on the Scorchers' first EP.

I don't know how you summarize a spirit, but that is what Jack and Andy (because that's how I always think of them both) were — and are — all about.

I always think of Jack kind of figuratively — or maybe it was even literally sometimes — sitting at Andy's feet, with his great aureole of hair making this bold statement that his silence did nothing to dispel.

That was the thing about him then: he was very quiet — but he was a total contributor to the conversation, in his attentiveness, in the way that you knew he picked up on every single word that was spoken, in the way that you could be certain he would go out and take the subject under discussion — whatever that subject was — in new, thoroughly assimilated, and idiosyncratic directions of his own.

I don't think anyone present is ever going to forget the revolution that Praxis wrought. It was everything that corporate Nashville was not at the time, and undoubtedly still is not today. It was about truth and belief and following your instincts in the same way that Sam Phillips had taught both Andy and Jack by example. It wasn't about hits — though hits never hurt — it was always about seeking out that unplowed row.

The music that they helped give birth to is music that we all cherish — but the spirit that they contributed, the manner in which they were willing to risk everything for what they believed in is an example by which we might all try to live.

There were touchstones for me in any conversation with Jack and Andy. Sam Phillips. Jerry Lee Lewis. The truth of Billy Joe Shaver's songs. Whatever they were working on at present. The ghost-like, intangible, but always prevailing spirit of the music.

They took me by the hand, they took us all by the hand and led us past skepticism into a room that was populated by hope and belief. There wasn't much room for skepticism in their world — well, maybe a little. But there was NO room for cynicism.

That's what I'll always remember about Jack: the openness of his enthusiasms, the openness of his belief, the generosity of his appreciation not just for the present but for the past, and for his vision of the future, too. That's what I'll try to carry with me: that faith in the future. I know I won't do as good a job as Jack — I don't know many people who do. But it's an ideal to try to live up to.



From James Barber, written Saturday, Nov. 22:

Jack Emerson, one of my greatest friends and mentors, died this afternoon from a heart attack at home in Nashville.

I’m sending this to you because I don’t think enough people knew about Jack and how much he contributed to the Cause. Please send it to anyone you know who knew Jack or should have known him.

Jack was a friend, advisor and confidante to some of the greatest artists in the world: Jason & the Nashville Scorchers, the Georgia Satellites, Steve Earle, Steve Forbert, Billy Joe Shaver and Sonny Landreth are just the beginning of a very long list.

I first met Jack in 1981 when I was a college radio DJ and Jack was a Vanderbilt student with a tiny DIY label called Praxis Records. He put out a 7" by Our Favorite Band that managed to be anarchic, funny, scary and profound all at once. I wrote my first fan letter and he wrote back.

When he sent me an advance pressing of the first Jason & the Nashville Scorchers EP, it began a friendship that lasted more than 20 years.

The Scorchers were maybe the greatest live band I’ve ever seen, a band that managed to conjure the Sex Pistols, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and George Jones all at the same time. Jack and his partner, Andy McLenon, ran Praxis more as a School of Rock than a management company and I proudly count myself as one of their students.

It seems so hard to explain now, but underground rock in the 80s was a Cause and bands like the Scorchers, R.E.M., the Replacements, Husker Du and the Dream Syndicate paved the way for everything good that happened for us in the 90s.

I’ll also confess that I just flat didn’t understand Bob Dylan until I was almost 30. And it was Jack who kept leading me back to records that I insisted weren’t as good as the hype. Of course, I was profoundly and embarrassingly wrong but it was Jack’s persistence that made sure I was able to eventually fall in love with some of the most important music in my life.

When I decided to quit the music business in 1988, it was Jack who summoned me to Nashville and convinced me that the Cause needed me too much for me to give up. I took his advice and have thanked him a million times since.

Every day of my life I try to remember what an enormous privilege it’s been for me to make my living doing something that I love and try to witness to someone else about the True Faith.

Jack was the person who first and best taught me how to do that.

He always cautioned me not to get sucked in by what we called the Hustle. Whenever I felt like it was going to get me, I could call him and we’d talk about Lefty Frizzell or Wire or Gram Parsons or the Rolling Stones and I’d invariably find my center and live to fight another day.

We often talked about the famous bootleg of a studio argument between Sam Phillips and Jerry Lee Lewis where Sam tries to convince Jerry Lee that he’s not going to hell for playing rock music. Like Mr. Sam, Jack believed that rock and roll had the power to save souls.

In a more perfect world, Jack would have been the head of a major record company. He was one of the greatest music men I’ve ever known and it’s the faith he always had in the power of music that has inspired me for my entire career.

I know he affected dozens if not hundreds of lives the way he affected mine.

Lots of us grew up in provincial towns where music was the lifeline that let us know that there must be a better life somewhere else. Jack understood this and knew that it was our sacred charge to keep making music that might change lives.

I will miss him every day.
Poems read by Jack's sisters, Emily and Amy:
If I should ever leave you
  whom I love
To go along the Silent Way,
  grieve not,
Nor speak of me with tears,
  but laugh and talk
Of me as if I were
  beside you there.
(I’d come – I’ come,
  could I but find a way!
But would not tears and grief
  be barriers?)
And when you hear a song
  or see a bird
I loved, please do not let
  the thought of me
Be sad…For I am
  loving you just as
I always have…
  You were so good to me!
There are so many things
  I wanted still
to do - so many things
   to say to you…
Remember that I
  did not fear…It was
Just leaving you
  that was hard to face…
We cannot see Beyond…
  But this I know:
I loved you so---‘twas heaven
Here with you!

—"To Those I Love", by Isla Paschal Richardson


I
give you this one thought to keep
I am with you still, I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glint on the snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush,
I am the swift, uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not think of me as gone,
I am with you still, in each new dawn.

— Native American Prayer



Just as the soft rains fill the streams,
pour into the rivers and join together in the oceans,
So may the power of every moment of your goodness
Flow forth to awaken and heal all beings,
Those here now, those gone before, those yet to come.

By the power of every moment of your goodness
May your heart’s wishes be soon fulfilled
As completely shining as the bright full moon,
As magically as by a wish-fulfilling gem.

By the power of every moment of your goodness
May all the dangers be averted and all the disease be gone.
May no obstacle come across your way.
May you enjoy fulfillment and long life.

— Prayer For Healing


For all in whose heart dwells respect,
Who follow the wisdom and compassion, of the Way.
May your life prosper in the four blessings
Of old age, beauty, happiness and strength

—Traditional Buddhist blessing and healing chant


And if I go, while you’re still here…

Know that I still live on, vibrating to a different measure behind the thin veil you cannot see through.

You will not see me, so you must have faith.

I wait the time when we can soar together again, both aware of each other.

Until then, live your life to the fullest. And when you need me, just whisper my name on your heart…I will be there.

—Unknown
Jack Emerson



From RollingStone.com:


You can love and appreciate people during their lifetimes, but when they die -- particularly when they die unexpectedly -- the role that they played in your life and that of everyone around you becomes painfully clear. As does the depth of the loss. That's what I felt recently when I learned that Jack Emerson, a passionate music fan and independent label head, died of a heart attack at the far-to-young age of forty-three. A friend of his sent around an email about Jack that explained, "I'm sending this to you because I don't think enough people knew about Jack and how much he contributed to the Cause." He's right, and that's why I'm writing this.

I first met Jack about twenty years ago when he and his dear friend Andy McLenon were running a small label in Nashville called, hilariously, Praxis International. Praxis was about as international as hand-stamped packages to music writers in England could make it. But soon its impact would be felt on both sides of the Atlantic. Jack and Andy had just put out the first releases by Jason and the Scorchers, a band that combined raw rock & roll energy with the depth and conviction of classic country music. In other words, Jack, Andy and the Scorchers were helping to create and define what would eventually become know as alternative country. They've never gotten sufficient credit for that, but it's true nonetheless.

I was living in Atlanta at the time, and just starting out as a rock writer. The Scorchers were coming to town, and I got an assignment to profile them for Record, a now-defunct music monthly based in New York. That was a big deal for me. I met the band just before their soundcheck at 688, the New Wave and punk club that gave a Hotlanta home to progressive bands from nearby Athens, as well as from the rest of the U.S. (particularly the South) and England. And that's when I met Jack and Andy, too. The interview that day turned into a conversation that essentially never stopped.

Like the Scorchers, Jack and Andy were true believers, and they made you feel the fire that they felt. At the time so many great young bands were starting out that had roots in the South -- R.E.M., the Swimming Pool Q's, Pylon, the dB's the B-52's, the Georgia Satellites and, of course, the Scorchers among them. The inventiveness, smarts and sheer joy of the music made supporting those bands feel like a mission. The especially great thing about Jack and Andy, however, was their visceral sense of history. They loved the Clash, and they loved Johnny Cash. They loved the Ramones, and they loved Jerry Lee Lewis. They made no distinction between music that was happening right this minute, and music that had changed the world decades before. All it had to be was great.

Jack was the sort of person who elevated the music industry merely through his involvement in it. He and Andy went on to launch the Georgia Satellites, and worked with artists of the caliber of John Hiatt, Steve Forbert, Billy Joe Shaver and Sonny Landreth. After Praxis ended its fourteen-year run, Jack joined forces with Steve Earle to form the E-Squared label, which put out The Mountain, Earle's blistering collaboration with bluegrass wizard Del McCoury, along with albums by Cheri Knight and the V-Roys. Most recently Jack was running his own label, the aptly -- and now sadly -- named Jack of Hearts.

The simple fact is Jack was all about heart. If Jack was involved with a project, you knew it was going to be good. Not that every album or every artist he ever worked with was destined for the ages. But anything he touched was always substantive and real. Jack didn't have a cynical bone in his body.

And that's a big part of what his friend Jim Barber meant when he wrote about Jack's contribution to "the Cause." The cause was not just music, though music was essential to it. The cause was caring. Bothering to make whatever you were working on as good as you can make it. Bothering to let other people know when they did something good. If the term alternative means anything, Jack embodied it. His every action provided a vision of what might be possible, and gave testimony that the music business could be and should be dignified, honest and fun.

With the news of his death, the emails and phone calls started flying, and the theme in them was always the same. How Jack had encouraged someone. How he had inspired them. In recent years, he and I had spoken and seen each other less than we used to, but I kept up with him through mutual friends and, needless to say, the sheer quality of the music that he made possible. Even when we were not in touch, it always heartened me to know that he was out there doing what he loved and communicating that commitment to others. He was a living ideal, one of the good guys, and it will take the dedicated, ongoing efforts of all of his friends to fill the hole that he left behind, and to create the musical legacy that he deserves.

ANTHONY DECURTIS
(November 26, 2003)
Out of the cradle endlessly rocking….
“THANKS JACK” BENEFIT CONCERT
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 12TH @ MERCY LOUNGE

in Nashville, Tennessee
Promotional support provided WRLT- Lightning 100

featuring
JOHN HIATT & THE GONERS
SONNY LANDRETH
STEVE EARLE (backed by the Scorchers)
JASON & THE SCORCHERS
BILLY JOE SHAVER (backed by the Scorchers)
WEBB WILDER & BAND
TIM KREKEL & THE SLUGGERS
Also shorter solo sets by Steve Forbert, Bill Lloyd & Jake Brennan!


Emcee: Rev. Keith Coes from Lightning 100



 
This Is Where I Belong: The Songs of Ray Davies & The Kinks

Reckless Country Soul -1982 EP Praxis
Fervor EP - 1983 Praxis

Fervor re-release - Praxis/EMI
Lost and Found - 1985 Praxis/EMI
Still Standing - 1986 Praxis/EMI
Thunder & Fire - 1989 Praxis/A&M
Are You Ready For The Country, Compilation - 1992 Praxis/EMI


Our Favorite Band
Pink Cadillac - EP Praxis
Saturday Night and Sunday Mornings - LP 1987 Praxis


The Sluggers
Over The Fence - 1986 Praxis/Arista

The Georgia Satellites
The Georgia Satellites -1986 Praxis/Elektra
Open All Night - 1988 Praxis/Elektra
In The Land Of Sin and Salvation - 1989 Praxis/Elektra
Let It Rock, The Best Of... - 1993 Praxis/Elektra


The Questionaires
Window To The World - 1989 Praxis/EMI
Anything Can Happen - 1991 Praxis /EMI


Streets OF This Town - 1988 Praxis/Geffen


Webb Wilder
Hybrid Vigor - 1989 Praxis/Island
Doo Dad - 1991 Praxis/Zoo/BMG
Corn Flicks (short film compilation ) 1992


Tramp On Your Street - Praxis/Zoo/BMG 1993
Unshaven, Live At Smith's Olde Bar - 1995 Praxis/Zoo/BMG

Outward Bound - Praxis/Zoo/BMG 1992
South Of I-10 – 1995 Praxis/Zoo/BMG


Hoo Doo Gurus
Crank - Praxis/Zoo/BMG/ 1994





Our Favorite Band (OFB)
Re-release in February '04