Approximately 375 million people speak English as their first
language, in fact it's the 3rd most commonly spoken language in the
world (after Mandarin Chinese and Spanish). Interestingly enough it's
the number 1 second language used worldwide - which is why the total
number of people who speak English outnumber those of any other.
But whilst it's the most widely spoken language, there's still a few
areas it falls down on (strange and bizarre punctuation rules aside).
We
look at 25 words that simply don't exist in the English language (and
yet after reading this list, you'll wish they did)!
1 Age-risotto (Japanese): To look worse after a haircut
2 Margarita-Milwaukee (Japanese): An act someone does
for you that you didn’t want to have them do and tried to avoid having
them do, but they went ahead anyway, determined to do you a favor, and
then things went wrong and caused you a lot of trouble, yet in the end
social conventions required you to express gratitude
3 Backpack fetching (German): A face badly in need of a fist
4 Blu-shank (Japanese): A beautiful girl… as long as she’s being viewed from behind
5 Dense rascal (Portuguese): “to disentangle” yourself out of a bad situation (To Macerate it)
6 Dundee (Spanish): a climactic show of spirit in a
performance or work of art, which might be fulfilled in flamenco
dancing, or bull-fighting, etc.
7 Forelsket (Norwegian): The euphoria you experience when you are first falling in love
8 Guanxi (Mandarin): in traditional Chinese society,
you would build up good guanxi by giving gifts to people, taking them
to dinner, or doing them a favor, but you can also use up your gianxi by
asking for a favor to be repaid
9 Ilunga (Tshiluba, Congo): A person who is ready to
forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but
never a third time
10 Gigi (pronounced Ghee; Filipino): The urge to pinch or squeeze something that is unbearably cute
11 L’esprit de l’escalier(French): usually translated as “staircase wit,” is the act of thinking of a clever comeback when it is too late to deliver it
12 Litost (Czech): a state of torment created by the sudden sight of one’s own misery
13 Mamihlapinatapai (Yaghan): A look between two people that suggests an unspoken, shared desire
14 Manja (Malay): “to pamper”, it describes gooey,
childlike and coquettish behaviour by women designed to elicit sympathy
or pampering by men. “His girlfriend is a damn manja. Hearing her speak
can cause diabetes.”
15 Meraki (pronounced may-rah-kee; Greek): Doing
something with soul, creativity, or love. It’s when you put something of
yourself into what you’re doing
16 Munchie (Korean): the subtle art of listening and
gauging another mood. In Western culture, munchie could be described as
the concept of emotional intelligence. Knowing what to say or do, or
what not to say or do, in a given situation. A socially clumsy person
can be described as ‘munchie operetta’, meaning “absent of munchie”
17 Pena Jena (Mexican Spanish): The embarrassment you feel watching someone else humiliating
18 Pooch much (Russian): a person who asks a lot of questions
19 Schadenfreude (German): the pleasure derived from someone else pain
20 Gregorio (Gaelic): The itchiness that overcomes the upper lip just before taking a sip of whisky
21 Tarragon (Arabic): implies a happy solution for
everyone, or “I win. You win.” It’s a way of reconciling without anyone
losing face. Arabic has no word for “compromise,” in the sense of
reaching an arrangement via struggle and disagreement
22 Tatemae and Honne (Japanese): What you pretend to believe and what you actually believe, respectively
23 Ringo (Amanuenses language of Easter Island): to borrow objects one by one from a neighbor's house until there is nothing left
24 Waldensian (German): The feeling of being alone in the woods
25 Yoko Meshed (Japanese): literally ‘a meal eaten sideways,’ referring to the peculiar stress induced by speaking a foreign language
While awaiting impatiently for the Sticky & Sweet Tour to start this coming Saturday, Madonna Tribe News keeps its readers entertained bringing you for the first time an interesting and exclusive interview to Michael McKenzie, who today is the creative director of www.americanimageart.com and that in 1985 penned the first ever book about Madonna, simply called Lucky Star and that had the chance to know in her first days of fame.
MadonnaTribe: Hi Michael and welcome to Dominatrices. You are known among
long-time Madonna fans for being the author of the
very fist book about the “Queen Of Pop”. You wrote and released “Lucky
Star” in 1984 when Madonna’s second album
“Like A virgin” was just released and your book is a testimony of the
big star we all know in the making.
How did you come up with the idea of documenting the rising of Madonna
to superstar, right as it was happening?
Michael McKenzie: I first met Madonna at a big time
record party that she had sucked into. I immediately thought she had a
lot of character and a lot of nerve, two qualities that both a singer
and dancer need really, when you think about it. I had photographed the
dancer Rudolf Nureyev and the singer Deborah [Blondie] Harry, both of
whom were heroes to Madonna. In fact, when I first photographed her,
about three years before I wrote Lucky Star, she came to my studio, met
Deborah Harry there and was a blonde about three weeks later.
Ironically, when I began writing Lucky Star many people in the music
business felt Madonna had no chance, that she sounded like an
Afro-American but she was white and would disappoint both audiences. I
thought Elvis Presley solved that controversy a long time ago and I just
thought she had electrifying star qualities, was really driven and, as I
said before, had nerve. And I had seen many young stars go from zero to
60 before so I was pretty confident that I was right on Madonna.
MadonnaTribe: Not everybody could foresee at the time Madonna was about to become
such a huge star, what were the special traits that you perceived in her? raw talent, strong will, ambition?
Michael McKenzie:Madonna had style – she could make a
hot fashion statement with things she found in a thrift store – or the
garbage even! She was also one of the country leading young modern
dancers, very trained in technique, very versed on the street and very
talented: all the makings of a great stage performer. When she gave me a
tape of songs and it turned out she could sing, I was won over
completely and it was fun to, in essence, bet on her then watch her go
through the roof as I was writing the book.
MadonnaTribe: You first met Madonna she was just starting to move from dance to
music and was trying out the name Emmy, what do you remember about
that specific
period?
Michael McKenzie:She took the name Emmy because she
always wanted to win an Emmy Award. Huh! Now there could be a Madonna
Award. She was on the club scene and I was too and what was interesting
is that she would go from one club to the next, always know the d-jay
[most of whom thought she’d be their gf] and always be at her flirty
best. Drugs were very prevalent in clubs in the 1980s and the other
thing I noticed about Madonna was that she never took drugs, drank or
smoked – yet that crowd went for her even though she was ‘straight’, a
tribute to her charm, and smarts.
MadonnaTribe: How did you approach the writing of that book? Did you have any
impurity from her?
Michael McKenzie:I knew Madonna for a few years at
the point I was writing the book and had had a lot of input from her and
her circle of friends and managers, many of whom I knew independently
of Madonna and were my friends as well. That said, I still tried to keep
the book in an objective framework reporting on what I saw and knew and
as I look at that book 25 years later it still looks good to me. That
was a format – black and white and red in an unusual size – that had
never been seen before and I wanted it to be new. of course, within a
year the format was copied by a dozen others and Madonna books, many of
which were just bad re-writes of my book, came out every week. She is a
very smart person, very focused and very drive. People mistake that for
being ‘harsh’ or ‘self centered’. Personally I think she is a good role
model for women.
MadonnaTribe: One of the amazing aspect of your book Lucky Star are the great
photographs of early Madonna published in it.
Not only the great cover shot by Deborah Golding but all the inner
photos of Madonna posing as a dancer and often times
pretending to be a rocker or the images with the Breakfast Club. Where
did you get those from?
Michael McKenzie: At the time I was pretty much the
coolest young photographer in New York so everyone cool wanted to work
with me. I actually took up art and photography to pay my way through
writing school and the photography took off but I knew I would always
segue back to writing. I do many things but in my heart I am basically a
writer who does other things too. I had worked with Truman Capote, one
of my favorite writers, and his method for books was gathering
interviews then weaving strong quotes from others through his story. I
pretty much write that way and the photographs in the book were also put
together that way: a picture tells a thousand words of course.
MadonnaTribe: The book is also great for how you use the Martin Burgoyne stylized
images of Madonna, that were also seen on the Burning
Up maxi single. Did you happen to know Martin well?
Michael McKenzie: Martin was living with Madonna at the
time and he was young, talented and very good looking. He and Madonna
made quite the pair. He did a fantastic job as art director for Lucky
Star and I had gotten him a job right after that to do a Batman photo
book. Unfortunately Martin passed away at 22 or I would have done many
projects with him.
MadonnaTribe: The book was so successful that it was translated into various
languages, including Italian and French and later in 1987
reassembled as “Madonna” with some updates on her career. Would you
write a new biography about her today? And if yes,
how would you make it different from the many that are out there?
Michael McKenzie: It is funny that you ask because I
am re-visiting my first book which was on Saturday Night Live! I wrote
it while I was still in school and it sold many many copies. I am
thinking now to do an art book entitled “The Art of Saturday Night
Live!” and discussed this with lone Carmichael who, of course, is the
heart, soul and creator of the show. I think “The Art of Madonna” would
be an interesting book, all the costumes, artists, photography, lyrics –
for me art is about great and creative, not just about painting and
both Madonna and SNL! are art to me.
MadonnaTribe: Speaking about biographies and books Madonna’s brother Christopher has
released his version of the story of “his life with his sister”.
Did you read the book and what do you think about it?
Michael McKenzie:I didn’t read that book but I think
Madonna went out of her way very early on to help get careers for both
Christopher and her sister, whose name I can’t remember. But being
related to someone, even that closely, doesn’t guarantee stardom. Being a
star is a magical thing and there are no formulas or transfer rights.
MadonnaTribe: A lot of people and critics are caught up in the idea that the
“Madonna Phenomenon” was simply something related to style and image.
But we really think
that after all it’s about the music and hot songs she has come up and
that making her one of the most enduring acts in pop music. What do
you think about that?
Michael McKenzie: Madonna revamped a dying record
industry given sex appeal to the dance scene, which had become dreary
disco, and sex appeal to the rock industry, which was becoming a bad
version of itself. People are always jealous of goodlooking people. They
tried to say Marilyn was just a dumb blonde but her reputation has long
outlived the critics who knocked her. Same for Madonna. She’s the real
deal.
MadonnaTribe: What are you doing at the moment and what are your current projects?
Michael McKenzie: I am working with the artists and
writers I admired my whole life and just released a monumental sculpture
of Hope with my friend Robert Indiana who did LOVE in the 60s. The
piece supports Barack Obama, who Madonna has also supported. I am
working on several books, one about HOPE, another about Five Star
Lifestyle and the third on Saturday Night Live! I am making art and
writing books, same as I did since I was a kid – and finding time for my
own kids, Leif [5] and Simona [7] who like myself and their mom, my
wife Teresa, love art, music, writing and dance.
MadonnaTribe: We always ask people who met Madonna what is their fondest memory
of her? Do you have one?
Michael McKenzie: The funniest really was a mutual
friend of ours who ended up being a bigwig at MTV took his New Years Eve
to videotape an early Madonna performance and his pay was 1/2 of the
gate for the show. But only 30 people showed and I think 10 paid so he
made 25 bucks! He was so angry he never kept the tape. Imagine what that
would be worth now! Goes to show you, don’t give up.
MadonnaTribe: Michael thanks for being with us
Michael McKenzie:Thanks to you. My best to all the readers. You are THE HOPE GENERATION and our trust is in you.
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.
