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| Jack Emerson (center) with Jason & the Scorchers |
Introduction: Jack Emerson’s influence on late ‘80s southern rock is immeasurable. He formed Praxis International, an indie label and artist management company, at the age of 22 with friend and partner Andy McLenon. Praxis started with just one band – Jason & the Nashville Scorchers – but soon steered the careers of bands like the Georgia Satellites, the Questionnaires, and Tim Krekel & the Sluggers. Emerson later worked with John Hiatt, Sonny Landreth, and Steve Forbert and his support of mid-’80s “college rock” bands like R.E.M. and the dB’s would lead them to greater successes.
After the Scorchers broke up, Emerson moved Praxis further into the alt-country field with important early ‘90s releases from Billy Joe Shaver and Webb Wilder. By 1995, however, Praxis had run its course and Emerson formed E Squared Records with friend Steve Earle. In 1999, Emerson brokered a deal between the label and Artemis Records that largely removed him from running the business side, freeing him up to pursue other projects. Sadly, Emerson died in November 2003 at the young age of 43. This interview with Emerson took place in 1996 and originally appeared in Nashville Business In Review.
People who claim to know a lot about these sort of things use words like “dynamics” or “synergy” when describing the inner workings of a volatile industry like the music biz. Perhaps it’s time we added two new words to the industry lexicon – “experience” and “evolution,” or, if you will, E2.
It’s no coincidence that these two words pretty much sum up the careers of Jack Emerson and Steve Earle, the two “E’s” behind the newly formed E2 Records. Both are well-known in the local music community, Emerson as the former head of Praxis International and Earle as a critically-acclaimed performer and songwriter. Together they have created an indie label that may well rewrite the way that things are done on Music Row.
Praxis was Nashville’s first independent rock ‘n’ roll record label, a vital part of the Music City’s early ‘80s non-country music scene. Home to Jason & the Nashville Scorchers, Praxis released the band’s early recordings and would act as their management through most of the decade. Along with friends and fellow Scorcher fans Andy McLenon and Kay Clary, Emerson would build a respected organization that was as professional as it was hard-working and creative.
Although the Scorchers never received the kind of commercial acceptance that they deserved, another Praxis band, the Georgia Satellites, hit it big with their first album. The success of the Satellites gained Emerson and the gang at Praxis a reputation in the industry as ace talent scouts. A subsequent deal with BMG subsidiary Zoo Records led to Praxis developing artists like Webb Wilder, Mark Germino, Sonny Landreth, and Billy Joe Shaver.
Steve Earle came to Nashville in the early ‘70s at the age of nineteen, a talented but struggling songwriter. Influenced by writers like Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt, Earle developed a heady story-telling style that owed as much to rock as it did country music. Hits by several country artists with Earle-written songs led to a deal with MCA Records, Earle’s first album, Guitar Town, taking the industry by storm. Shooting to number one on the country charts, the album won critical acclaim from sources as diverse as Country Music magazine and Rolling Stone.
Subsequent releases would showcase Earle’s evolution as a songwriter, often drawing favorable comparisons with artists like Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen. As he incorporated heavier rock influences into his music, however, the country music establishment didn’t quite know what to do with an artist of Earle’s talents and vision. Earle moved to MCA’s Uni Records subsidiary in New York for the last albums of his contract, a move that weakened his local industry support. Problems with drugs and alcohol hastened the decline of his career, inevitably leading to an arrest and a prison sentence for possession.
The formation of E2 was to be part of a natural evolution for both Emerson and Earle. “After about 15 years of Praxis,” says Emerson, “when we ended our Bertelsman/Zoo agreement....things had gotten a little stale. Kay was real interested in starting her own company and working out of her house. I couldn’t imagine trying to run that place without her there. Andy was questioning what he wanted to do and I was questioning what I wanted to do. We were all a little burned out...so it was a natural time to close things down.”
With Praxis a part of the past, Emerson was open to new opportunities. “We’d all kept in touch with Steve, because we were all really big fans.” In the latter years, there “wasn’t that much to keep in touch with, musically,” says Emerson of Earle, “because he was going through the whole period of sobriety, working through the prison system.” After Earle’s release, says Emerson, “he knew that he had to stay busy...and he’s always been interested in the business side, always been a producer as well as a songwriter. The more that I talked with him, the more it made sense for us to try and do something together.”
After recording a well-received acoustic album for Nashville’s Winter Harvest label, Earle was ready to return to his former rocking style of playing for his next album. Clean and sober for almost two years, he had stared into the abyss and emerged a stronger artist than ever. “He was looking for a solid compadre who could represent his talent at the major label side,” says Emerson. “After investigating all of our possible alliances, Warner Brothers seemed to make the most sense.”
The newly formed E2 label signed a deal providing Warner Brothers the opportunity for worldwide distribution of their releases, with the exception of England, where they hooked up with Transatlantic/Castle. In return, Warner provided start-up funding for the label. Non-Warner releases will be distributed through the Alternative Distribution Alliance, a group of indie labels that works to place product in non-traditional, non-mainstream retail outlets.
E2 has received a lot of moral support from their major label sponsors. “In essence, we’ve got a deal that’s spread between the New York office, the L.A. office and the Nashville office,” Emerson explains, citing Warner executives like Joe McKuen, Bob Merlis and Nancy Stein as being advocates of the young label. “Jim Ed Norman deserves a lot of credit,” says Emerson, referring to the local label chief’s recognition of Nashville’s potential. “Warner Brothers understood what we wanted to do,” says Emerson, “not only with Steve’s records, but with the records that we wanted to make, whether Steve was producing or whatever.”
The pairing of Emerson and Earle has proven to be a marriage made in heaven. “We were able to sit down and work out a complex but functional situation where Steve could help make and produce records and I’d be in the office on a daily basis to kind of glue the thing together,” says Emerson. The first E2 release was Earle’s rocking I’m Alright, a wonderful return to form for this talented artist. The label has also signed two new acts, Knoxville’s V-Roys and Ross Rice, former member of the popular Memphis band Human Radio. Both have albums planned for August release.
E2 has retained control over the entire A & R process. “We have total autonomy, creatively,” says Emerson, E2 shouldering the responsibility of discovering and signing new artists, and producing their recorded efforts. “Our attitude is that if Steve and I are both over the top about something, we’ll do it. If one of us is not thrilled, ready to climb over broken glass, then we won’t do it.” There’s no pressure on the pair from anybody to crank out product, so E2 will release fewer records than a lot of indie labels, but they’ll be hand-picked by the combination management/creative team at the top of the label.
There are three things, says Emerson, that the label is looking for in an artist. “A lot of originality, which doesn’t mean they don’t have a good sense of the past,” he says, “but rather a good sense of what they want to do, a unique sound. The second element would be songs, and not necessarily in a classic sense. With Steve, he can he detect and help young writers with what they want to do, answer their questions. The third thing would be a certain timeless element. Most of the records that I listen to and that Steve listens to have been things that we enjoy as much now as when they were released.”
After a record is made, says Emerson, “we get Warner Brothers and the act together, sit down and decide whether or not something is better served going out through the independent system or going out through the Warner Brothers system. What this means is that sometimes a young band that we think has a great record may spend the first six months on ADA without Warner Brothers, the machine, getting involved. If everybody agrees that’s the best way to go, we may do it for two records, we may do it for three records, or we may go straight to Warner Brothers.”
“We’re trying to make productive use out of a strong multi-national company and still give the artist as much control as possible in terms of their own destiny,” concludes Emerson. For Steve Earle and Jack Emerson, the two sides of E2 Records, their own destinies will be built on both the sum of their previous experience and the result of their personal evolutions, a formula for success than may well become known in the future as simply E2.
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