By Eleni P. Austin
If it were possible for Willy Wonka and Edward Scissorhands to create a love child, his name would be Jack White. As eccentric and creative as Wonka and as reticent and enigmatic as Scissorhands, Jack White has carved out his very own Rock & Roll empire.
Jack White was born John Anthony Gillis, the youngest of ten children, in Detroit, Michigan. He showed an early affinity for music and began playing drums at age six. As he got older he picked up more instruments, discarded by older siblings. Pink Floyd, the Door and Led Zeppelin nourished him during his grammar school days, but during his teenage years, he subsisted on a steady diet of the Blues.
When it became time to learn a trade, White became a furniture upholsterer. He had a three year apprenticeship with Ben Muldoon, whom he credits with exposing him to Punk Rock. Not only did he open his own repair shop, Third Man Upholstery, his first band was The Upholsterers, White on guitar, Muldoon on drums. They recorded two self-released albums.
By the mid ‘90s, White was a lanky presence in the insular Detroit music scene. He landed his first professional gig, as a drummer in Goober & The Peas. Thereafter, he hopscotched from band to band. He also met Meg White.
They became a couple and Meg began to play drums. Her primitive style inspired White to form a two piece with her and the White Stripes was born. Once they married, White, rather unconventionally, took Meg White’s surname as his own.
Their first single was independently released in February, 1998. Their self-titled album arrived in the summer of 1999 on the Sympathy For The Record Industry label: A supersonic blend of Blues, Garage Rock and Punk, it garnered good reviews. From the beginning, Jack White tried to shroud the duo in mystique, insisting they were siblings, (even after they divorced in 2000).
Their sophomore effort, De Stijl (Dutch for “the style”), was recorded in the Whites’ living room and released in 2000. It is now considered a cult classic. But the duo really broke through critically and commercially on their third effort, White Blood Cells.
Arriving in the summer of 2001, the album peaked at #61 on the Billboard Top 200, and reached #55 on the British charts. White Stripes signed with a major label, V2, and their inventive videos went into heavy rotation on MTV. (Back when it was still a music channel).
Their fourth and fifth albums, 2003’s Elephant and 2005’s Get Behind Me Satan, cemented the band’s superstar status. The former was recorded in 2 weeks in England on antiquated, analog equipment. Receiving unanimous critical acclaim, it made a home in the Top 10 and went double platinum in England. The latter broadened the band’s sonic palette, adding piano and marimba to the mix. They also won a Grammy for Best Alternative Album.
By now Jack White was remarried to model Karen Ellson. He also began collaborating with other musicians. He produced Loretta Lynn’s 2004 album, Van Lear Rose, and began a side project with Detroit Power Pop musician, Brendan Benson. Recruiting Jack Lawrence and Patrick Keeler, (rhythm section for Detroit Garage rockers, the Greenhornes), they became the Raconteurs. They released two excellent albums, Broken Toy Soldiers in 2006 and Consolers Of The Lonely in 2008.
As if that wasn’t enough, White started a third project, Dead Weather. Relying on Jack Lawrence for bass, he enlisted Queens Of The Stone Age keyboard player Dean Fertita and Kills vocalist, Alison Mosshart. For this project, White stayed behind the drum kit and sang. They released two albums, Horehound in 2009 and Sea Of Cowards in 2010.
In the middle of all this, he and Meg released the White Stripes final effort, Icky Thump in 2007. Their tour was aborted when Meg began to suffer acute anxiety. The album won a Grammy, but it was the end of the White Stripes. (They officially called it quits in 2011).
By 2012, Jack White had become the consummate entrepreneur. He had a record label, recording studio and record store under the Third Man umbrella. He continues to have an upholstery workshop on his Nashville property. He is also a taxidermy enthusiast. All of his endeavors are color coded, red white and black for the White Stripes, Third Man Records is yellow, black, red and blue, even when he began his upholstery business back in Detroit, everything was yellow and black.
When he launched his solo career in 2012, suddenly everything was blue. Blunderbuss arrived in the Spring of that year. Of course it topped the charts and received rave reviews. White went on tour with two backing bands, the all-female Peacocks, and the all-male Buzzards.
Now White is back with his second solo effort, “Lazaretto.” The album opens with the one-two punch of “Three Women” and “Lazaretto.” “Three Women” is anchored by spooky Hammond B3 and a stop-start kick drum rhythm. White easily slips into the skin of a cyber-lothario. “I got three women red, blonde and brunette/it took a digital photo to pick which one I like.” Thick slabs of staccato riff-age crest atop Hammond and harmonica fills that walk a knife’s edge between audacious and annoying.
The title track weaves fat stacks of reverb and squeal-y licks through a tapestry of sawing violin and a punishing backbeat. In the 16th century a lazaretto was actually a quarantine for lepers, but White’s sequestration is more emotional than physical. “Quarantined on the Isle Of Man, and I’m trying to escape any way I can.”
Jack White’s affinity for Country music is evident on a couple of tracks, “Temporary Ground” and “Entitlement.” On the former, White is Gram Parsons to (Peacock fiddler) Lillie Mae Rische’s Emmylou Harris. Her swooping fiddle lines connect to tinkly piano notes and swirling pedal steel, accentuating their sweet vocal blend.
The latter is a brittle critique of society’s collective self-involvement . Over subdued acoustic guitar, high lonesome pedal steel, saloon piano, coruscated mandolin and sparkling harp, White takes aim at our 21st century sense of privilege… “There are children today who are lied to, they’re told the world is rightfully theirs/They can have what they want, whenever they want, they take like Caesar and nobody cares.”
The album’s stand-out tracks are “Would You Fight For Me,” “Just One Drink” and “Alone In My Home.” The piano driven “Would You Fight…” is cloaked in Southern Gothic menace. Banshee backing vocals, astringent guitar licks and pin-prick percussion underscore White’s invitation to be “the caretaker of sin to my abandoned and malignant heart.”
Opposites kind of attract on the rollicking “Just One Drink.” White sidles up to the object of his affection over a woozy fiddle, tack piano and a pounding beat. His well-lubricated entreaties fall flat… “I love you, But Honey, why don’t you love me?”
Finally “Alone In My Home” is piloted by sprightly piano flourishes that recall Elvis Costello’s “Accidents Will Happen” and mandolin tones that echo Led Zeppelin’s epochal “Tangerine.” It’s all woe-is-me for sad-sack Jack…”These stones that are thrown against my bones break-through/But they hurt less as time goes by.”
Not everything here works. The instrumental (and first single), “High Stepper,” is a frenetic combination of air raid-keys and hair-pin guitar curves. White seems more intent on demonstrating his effects rig than creating a melody.
“That Black Bat Licorice” is not so much a song, as it is a sound collage. Buzz-saw guitar, sweeping violin runs and an odd reggae rhythm feel like a collection of tics and gestures.
The album closes with “Want And Able.” Jaunty but bare-boned, consisting of piano, acoustic guitar and vocals. White obliquely rails against the status quo and social convention. “Who is the who that is telling who what to do? Being able is to freedom what wanting is to cruel/It’s hard to tell it seems, which one of them’s the fool. Is freedom a gift you give to the ones that say I love you?” (Huh?)
Despite his massive critical and commercial success, Jack White continues to view himself as an outlier. Perhaps his alienation fuels his creativity. His solo efforts have allowed him to explore new musical territories. Maybe now he can relax a little.
