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, 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
modernSaint.
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 bandscalled
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.
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
Igive 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
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
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.
