Essential Emmett

Performing Arts & Entertainment in Canada, Summer, 2000 by Richard Wharton

IMAGINE IF STEVE MARTIN WAS STILL THE JERK, OR IF TOM HANKS WAS STILL A BOSOM BUDDY, TRAPPED IN A vortex called typecasting. You think Hollywood is bad for that kind of thing? Try the Music Industry - it's worse. Once a Monkee, always a Monkee.

Canada's guitar virtuoso Rik Emmett is no Monkee, although a sense of humour and sharp wit shines through in his intimate solo performances nowadays. Emmett's showcases shatter preconceptions: they defy the vortex of typecasting by drawing upon a wide palette of true artistic talents.

Emmett seems relaxed, at ease with his agenda, as he jokes backstage at the Berklee College of Music, where he is about to record a live CD during two sold-out nights, set for release on his own Open House Records label, distributed by EMI Canada. Emmett speaks with mixed emotions of his days in Triumph, when he fronted the popular Canadian band from 1975 to 1988: "I felt, at times, like I was in a sitcom, playing a part."

The end of Triumph was not a Hollywood sitcom happy ending (file under music business, not music hobby). Rik left the band in 1988 to pursue a successful solo career, recording three releases for Duke Street/MCA records. The first, Absolutely, went gold, yielding hit singles "Saved by Love", "Big Lie", and "When a Heart Breaks".

Ipso Facto followed in '92, but the original tracks for the album were closer in style to Sting than Triumph. The powers that be asked Emmett to go back and record a few harder tracks (file under Typecasting 101) and Emmett obliged; after all, he had always put trademark classical guitar pieces in between the hard rock anthems on Triumph records, so why not try a flip-flop? Of course, it was at this time that the record industry did one one as well (file under Seattle Grunge Bandwagonism).

A strong singer/songwriter record called Spiral Notebook followed in '95, but it got lost in the constant whirlpool of major record company releases and priorities, rationalizations and allocations of resources, so Emmett decided it was time to take control of his own career.

Rik would record his own music, in his own studio, on his own label, and make the recordings he could manage to make. It would reflect his own musical identities, whether it was jazz, rock, classical, or blues - all of which were the musical roots of his youth.

"I looked at Ani Defranco and Loreena McKennitt, saw it could be done, and so embarked on the independent route," says Emmett. "I was determined to try and find a way of building my own marketplace and test the courage of my convictions."

Emmett's convictions have paid off. In the fall of '96 he started to record a guitar trilogy, the first installment being Ten Invitations from the Mistress of Mr E., a beautifully written and performed CD of classical nylon string guitar. Critics took note and realized the "rock guitar god" was not a one-trick pony.

"He is his own worst enemy. He is one of the only guitarists out there who may be too talented for his own damn good," wrote Bob Gulla in of Guitar Magazine, down in the U.S. "He's one of Canada's finest, and arguably, one of the world's best," said Kathy Wagner from FMQB and WMGK radio in Philadelphia.

Rik then recorded part two of his guitar trilogy, a jazz record called Swing shift, a completely different musical direction which included his love of playing jazz, swing and fusion. Again, the CD was very well received critically, and proved that the real Rik Emmett was perhaps closer to Pat Metheny than to AC/DC. This raised a few eyebrows, but more importantly, raised the spirits of Rik's hardcore fans, who had waited patiently for the talent that they had believed in all along to blossom into these new, full-blown CDs of creative musicianship.

At this time EMI came to the table with a distribution deal, linking Open House into their own boutique "Artisan" label. "Rik is one of those artists who encompasses the complete package. His creative flow has continued unabated for decades," says EMI president Deane Cameron.

The distribution deal meant that Emmett had the creative freedom to write, record and produce the albums he had always wanted to create.

Raw Quartet became the final CD in the trilogy in early '99, displaying Rik's passion and natural affinity for blues and rock. (All the Labelling and Category Freaks can file it under Stevie Ray meets Lonnie Johnson in the Rootsy Classic Rock Section of your friendly Mega-Mall Record Store.)

The guitar trilogy proved many things to different parties: it revealed something to the critics who had never heard the beautiful classical pieces that were hidden in between the rock anthems on those Triumph records; it appealed to those who were jaded about the music industry, and it provoked a few of those who were conditioned to listen only to one type of music, or the folk and jazz types who could only respect purists who only played in one narrow musical genre.

It was accomplished music, but it was also 'product' that had a counterculture needle, ready to let the hot-air out of an overblown industry. This wasn't Chris Gaines, playing major marketing games: this was the real deal, and folks picked up on that.