154-470: John Anthony White ( né Gillis ; born July 9, 1975) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and producer who achieved international fame as the guitarist and lead singer of the rock duo the White Stripes . As the White Stripes disbanded, he sought success with his solo career, subsequent collaborations, and business ventures. After moonlighting in several underground Detroit bands as
308-508: A DigiTech Whammy WH-4 to create the rapid modulations in pitch he uses in his solos. White also produces a "fake" bass tone by playing the Kay Hollowbody and JB Hutto Montgomery Airline guitars through a Whammy IV set to one octave down for a very thick, low, rumbling sound, which he uses most notably on the song " Seven Nation Army ". He also uses an MXR Micro Amp and custom Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Distortion/Sustainer. In 2005, for
462-522: A folk album, on July 22. White also released a video for "Taking Me Back" on November 11. White released 3 more singles from Fear of the Dawn; the title track on January 18, 2022, " Hi-De-Ho " on March 3, and "What's the Trick?" on April 7 (the day before the album released). Each of these singles was backed by a track from Entering Heaven Alive , promoting both albums in tandem. Together, the albums were named
616-427: A Black Gibson F-4 mandolin ("Little Ghost"), piano (on most tracks from Get Behind Me Satan , and various others), and an electric piano on such tracks as "The Air Near My Fingers" and "I'm Finding it Harder to be a Gentleman". White also plays percussion instruments such as the marimba (as on "The Nurse"), drums and tambourine . For the White Stripes' 2007 tour, he played a custom-finish Hammond A-100 organ with
770-502: A British usage of the 1600s referring to the "intense visual hallucinations that can accompany severe alcohol withdrawal". As time went on, the phrase lost the reference to devils and came to mean a state of agitation or depression. By the 1800s in the United States, the term "blues" was associated with drinking alcohol, a meaning which survives in the phrase ' blue law ', which prohibits the sale of alcohol on Sunday. In 1827, it
924-570: A Leslie 3300 speaker, which was subsequently loaned to Bob Dylan , and currently resides at Third Man Studios. On the album Broken Boy Soldiers , both he and Benson are credited with playing the album's synths and organ. With the Dead Weather, White plays a custom Ludwig Classic Maple kit in Black Oyster Pearl. Notably, it includes two-snare drums, which White calls "the jazz canon". For the 2009 Full Flash Blank tour, White used
1078-483: A band together called Catalyst, and he learned to play the instruments they abandoned; he began playing the drums in the first grade after finding a kit in the attic. As a child, he was a fan of classical music, but in elementary school, he began listening to the Doors , Pink Floyd , and Led Zeppelin . As a "shorthaired [teenager] with braces", Gillis began listening to the blues and 1960s rock that would influence him in
1232-484: A banjo or guitar. Regional styles of country blues varied widely in the early 20th century. The (Mississippi) Delta blues was a rootsy sparse style with passionate vocals accompanied by slide guitar. The little-recorded Robert Johnson combined elements of urban and rural blues. In addition to Robert Johnson, influential performers of this style included his predecessors Charley Patton and Son House . Singers such as Blind Willie McTell and Blind Boy Fuller performed in
1386-415: A break; the harmony of this two-bar break, the turnaround, can be extremely complex, sometimes consisting of single notes that defy analysis in terms of chords. Much of the time, some or all of these chords are played in the harmonic seventh (7th) form. The use of the harmonic seventh interval is characteristic of blues and is popularly called the "blues seven". Blues seven chords add to the harmonic chord
1540-727: A cell phone; he rented an apartment in Nashville, recorded quietly so no one would know what he was working on, and slept on an army cot. He drew inspiration from rap artists of the 1980s and 1990s (as well as A Tribe Called Quest , Kanye West , and Nicki Minaj ), and chose his backing musicians from talent that played supporting hip hop artists live. On December 12, 2017, he released a four-minute video titled "Servings and Portions from my Boarding House Reach", which featured short sound bites of new music interspersed with white noise . In January 2018, White released " Connected by Love ", taken from his third solo album Boarding House Reach , which
1694-586: A center for electric blues from 1948 on, when Muddy Waters recorded his first success, "I Can't Be Satisfied". Chicago blues is influenced to a large extent by Delta blues , because many performers had migrated from the Mississippi region. Howlin' Wolf , Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon and Jimmy Reed were all born in Mississippi and moved to Chicago during the Great Migration. Their style
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#17327721408471848-574: A character named Georgia and performed five songs for the Cold Mountain soundtrack : "Sittin' on Top of the World", "Wayfaring Stranger", "Never Far Away", "Christmas Time Soon Will Be Over" and "Great High Mountain". The 2003 Jim Jarmusch film Coffee and Cigarettes featured both Jack and Meg in the segment "Jack Shows Meg His Tesla Coil". He also played Elvis Presley in the 2007 satire Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story . In 2016, he appeared as
2002-536: A classic movie star on the back. Claudette Colbert is the brunette he used while with the Stripes, Rita Hayworth is the redhead he acquired with the Raconteurs, and Veronica Lake is the blonde he added in 2010 while with the Dead Weather. Since 2018, White has been playing EVH Wolfgang guitars, which are Eddie Van Halen 's signature model. White uses numerous effects to create his live sound, most notably
2156-399: A component of R&B. After World War II, new styles of electric blues became popular in cities such as Chicago , Memphis , Detroit and St. Louis . Electric blues used electric guitars , double bass (gradually replaced by bass guitar ), drums , and harmonica (or "blues harp") played through a microphone and a PA system or an overdriven guitar amplifier . Chicago became
2310-481: A digital single available through iTunes on August 11, 2010. In November 2010, producer Danger Mouse announced that White—along with Norah Jones —had been recruited for his collaboration with Daniele Luppi entitled Rome . White provided vocals to three songs on the album: "The Rose with the Broken Neck", "Two Against One", and "The World". White finished and performed the song "You Know That I Know", and it
2464-554: A drum head with the Three Brides of Dracula on the front, but in 2010, White employed a new drum head, upon the release of Sea of Cowards , which has an image of The Third Man himself: Harry Lime attempting to escape certain capture in the sewers of Vienna. During the American leg of the 2010 tour, White switched his drum head again featuring a picture of himself in the guise he wore on the cover of Sea of Cowards . This drum head
2618-495: A drummer, White founded the White Stripes with fellow Detroit native and then-wife Meg White in 1997. Their 2001 breakthrough album, White Blood Cells , brought them international fame with the single and accompanying music video for " Fell in Love with a Girl ". White subsequently began collaborating with artists such as Loretta Lynn and Bob Dylan . In 2005, White founded the Raconteurs with Brendan Benson , and in 2009 founded
2772-573: A family friend, Brian Muldoon. He credits Muldoon with exposing him to punk music as they worked together in the shop. Muldoon goaded his young apprentice into forming a band: "He played drums", Gillis thought. "Well I guess I'll play guitar then." The two recorded an album, Makers of High Grade Suites, as the Upholsterers . As a senior in high school, he met Meg White at the Memphis Smoke restaurant where she worked, and they frequented
2926-421: A guitar built out of a plank of wood, three nails, a glass Coke bottle , a guitar string, and a pickup. He ends the demonstration by saying, "Who says you need to buy a guitar?" In a 2012 episode of the show, Portlandia , White made a cameo in a sketch spoofing home studio enthusiasts who prefer antique recording equipment. White has enjoyed both critical and commercial success, and is widely credited as one of
3080-634: A lark, it felt liberating and refreshing." The couple became a band, calling themselves the White Stripes , and two months later performed their first show at the Gold Dollar in Detroit. Despite being married, Jack and Meg publicly presented themselves as siblings. They kept to a chromatic theme, dressing only in red, white, and black. They began their career as part of Michigan's underground garage rock music scene. They played along with and opened for more established local bands such as Bantam Rooster ,
3234-597: A light-activated theremin next to the Bigsby. White has dubbed this one the "Green Machine", and it is featured in It Might Get Loud . He sometimes played a Gibson J-160E , a Gretsch Duo Jet in Cadillac Green, and a second Gretsch Rancher acoustic guitar. For the Raconteurs' 2008 tour, he had Analog Man plate all of his pedals in copper. In 2020 White completed his Three-Wheel-Motion Low Rider - which
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#17327721408473388-556: A modified replica around 2000. The 1950s-era Kay Hollowbody was a gift from his brother in return for a favor. It was the same brand of electric guitar made popular by Howlin' Wolf , and White most famously used it on "Seven Nation Army". He began using a 1915 Gibson L-1 acoustic (often called the Robert Johnson model) on the Icky Thump album; in an interview for Gibson, he called the instrument his favorite. He also used
3542-698: A more rhythm-based guitar playing by White. The band's sixth album, Icky Thump , was released in 2007, and unlike their previous lo-fi albums, it was recorded in Nashville at Blackbird Studio. The album was regarded as a return to the band's earlier blues and garage-rock sound. It debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200 chart, and entered the UK Albums Chart at number one, selling over 300,000 vinyl copies in England alone. Of his excitement for vinyl, White explained, "We can't afford to lose
3696-635: A movement known as the Great Migration . The long boom following World War II induced another massive migration of the African-American population, the Second Great Migration , which was accompanied by a significant increase of the real income of the urban blacks. The new migrants constituted a new market for the music industry. The term race record , initially used by the music industry for African-American music,
3850-745: A new group called the Dead Weather . Mosshart sang, White played drums and shared vocal duties, Jack Lawrence of the Raconteurs played bass, and the Queens of the Stone Age keyboardist and guitarist Dean Fertita rounded out the four-piece. The group debuted a handful of new tracks on March 11, 2009, in Nashville from their debut album Horehound . It came out on July 13, 2009, in Europe and July 14, 2009, in North America on White's Third Man Records label. In 2008, White collaborated with Alicia Keys on
4004-456: A note with a frequency in a 7:4 ratio to the fundamental note. At a 7:4 ratio, it is not close to any interval on the conventional Western diatonic scale . For convenience or by necessity it is often approximated by a minor seventh interval or a dominant seventh chord . In melody , blues is distinguished by the use of the flattened third , fifth and seventh of the associated major scale . Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce
4158-599: A part in early blues, citing Robert Johnson 's " Cross Road Blues " as a "thinly veiled reference to Eleggua , the orisha in charge of the crossroads". However, the Christian influence was far more obvious. The repertoires of many seminal blues artists, such as Charley Patton and Skip James , included religious songs or spirituals. Reverend Gary Davis and Blind Willie Johnson are examples of artists often categorized as blues musicians for their music, although their lyrics clearly belong to spirituals. The blues form
4312-569: A part of ragtime; Handy's signature work was the " Saint Louis Blues ". In the 1920s, the blues became a major element of African American and American popular music, also reaching white audiences via Handy's arrangements and the classic female blues performers. These female performers became perhaps the first African American "superstars", and their recording sales demonstrated "a huge appetite for records made by and for black people." The blues evolved from informal performances in bars to entertainment in theaters. Blues performances were organized by
4466-449: A proficient guitar, bass, mandolin , percussion and piano player. During his career with the White Stripes, White principally used three guitars, though he used others as well. The first was a vintage 1964 red Airline " JB Hutto " model originally distributed by Montgomery Ward department store. Though used by several artists, White's attachment to the instrument raised its popularity to the extent that Eastwood Guitars began producing
4620-443: A prolonged break from live performances. However, he performed on the inaugural episode of the radio show A Prairie Home Companion with the new host Chris Thile, on October 15, 2016, in support of his compilation album Acoustic Recordings 1998–2016 . He co-wrote the song "Don't Hurt Yourself " with Beyoncé on her album Lemonade , and accompanied her on the vocals. Ahead of his next effort, White worked in isolation and without
4774-419: A recording career that began in 1926 and spanned forty years. These recordings were typically labeled " race records " to distinguish them from records sold to white audiences. Nonetheless, the recordings of some of the classic female blues singers were purchased by white buyers as well. These blueswomen's contributions to the genre included "increased improvisation on melodic lines, unusual phrasing which altered
Jack White - Misplaced Pages Continue
4928-474: A seminary in Wisconsin , and I was gonna become a priest, but at the last second I thought, 'I'll just go to public school.' I had just gotten a new amplifier in my bedroom, and I didn't think I was allowed to take it with me." Instead, he got accepted into Cass Technical High School as a business major, and played the drums and trombone in the band. At 15, he began a three-year upholstery apprenticeship with
5082-406: A separate genre arose during the black migration from the countryside to urban areas in the 1920s and the simultaneous development of the recording industry. Blues became a code word for a record designed to sell to black listeners. The origins of the blues are closely related to the religious music of Afro-American community, the spirituals . The origins of spirituals go back much further than
5236-494: A single line repeated four times. However, the most common structure of blues lyrics today was established in the first few decades of the 20th century, known as the "AAB" pattern. This structure consists of a line sung over the first four bars, its repetition over the next four, and a longer concluding line over the last bars. This pattern can be heard in some of the first published blues songs, such as " Dallas Blues " (1912) and " Saint Louis Blues " (1914). According to W.C. Handy ,
5390-410: A solo artist, on September 21, 2018, exclusively on Amazon Prime Video . In October 2021, White released " Taking Me Back " – his first solo single since 2018 – which appeared in the game Call of Duty: Vanguard . In November, White revealed that he would release two solo albums in 2022: Fear of the Dawn , which will feature White's traditional rock sound, on April 8, and Entering Heaven Alive ,
5544-532: A song called " Steady, as She Goes ". This inspired them to create a full band, and they invited Jack Lawrence and Patrick Keeler of the Greenhornes to join them in what would become The Raconteurs . The musicians met in Benson's home studio in Detroit and, for the remainder of the year, they recorded when time allowed. The result was the band's debut album, Broken Boy Soldiers , released in 2006. Reaching
5698-481: A special guest on the season one finale of The Muppets , and sang " You Are the Sunshine of My Life ", which he later released on 7-inch vinyl. In June 2017, White appeared in the documentary film The American Epic Sessions , recording on the first electrical sound recording system from the 1920s. His performances of "Matrimonial Intentions", "Mama's Angel Child", "2 Fingers of Whiskey (with Elton John ) and "On
5852-422: A three-pickup Airline Town & Country (later featured in the "Steady As She Goes" music video), a Harmony Rocket, a 1970s-era Crestwood Astral II, and what would become the first of three custom Gretsch Rancher Falcon acoustic guitars. While with the Stripes, any equipment that did not match their red/black/white color scheme was painted red. On Black Friday in 2013, Third Man Records diversified and launched
6006-470: A wider audience, especially white listeners. In the 1960s and 1970s, a hybrid form called blues rock developed, which blended blues styles with rock music . The term 'Blues' may have originated from "blue devils", meaning melancholy and sadness. An early use of the term in this sense is in George Colman 's one-act farce Blue Devils (1798). The phrase 'blue devils' may also have been derived from
6160-479: A wink? Or are the White Stripes simply naïve?" Alexis Petridis, of The Guardian , said that White "makes for an enigmatic figure. Not because he's particularly difficult or guarded, but simply because what he tells you suggests a lifelong penchant for inscrutable behavior." White himself confesses, "Sometimes I think I'm a simple guy, but I think the reality is I'm really complicated, as simple as I wish I was." Birth name#Maiden and married names A birth name
6314-427: A yellow-and-black uniform, and a yellow clipboard. Although Third Man Upholstery never lacked business, he claims it was unprofitable due to his complacency about money and his business practices that were perceived as unprofessional, including making bills out in crayon and writing poetry inside the furniture. At 19 years old, Jack had landed his first professional gig as the drummer for the Detroit band Goober &
Jack White - Misplaced Pages Continue
6468-454: Is a cyclic musical form in which a repeating progression of chords mirrors the call and response scheme commonly found in African and African-American music. During the first decades of the 20th century blues music was not clearly defined in terms of a particular chord progression. With the popularity of early performers, such as Bessie Smith , use of the twelve-bar blues spread across
6622-458: Is a highly customized Fender Telecaster B-Bender guitar. He has since acquired another Gretsch, a custom white " Billy Bo " Jupiter Thunderbird with a gold double pickguard (as seen in the music video for "Another Way to Die"). White found a 1957 Gretsch G6134 White Penguin in 2007 while on tour in Texas—the same one he used in the music video for " Icky Thump "—which ultimately fit in with
6776-427: Is called Sam Kay by some fans, referring to the insert inside of the 12" LP. I love analog because of what it makes you do. Digital recording gives you all this freedom, all these options to change the sounds that you are putting down, and those are for the most part not good choices to have for an artist," and "Mechanics are always going to provide inherent little flaws and tiny little specks and hisses that will add to
6930-728: Is often associated with solo piano, boogie-woogie was also used to accompany singers and, as a solo part, in bands and small combos. Boogie-woogie style was characterized by a regular bass figure, an ostinato or riff and shifts of level in the left hand, elaborating each chord and trills and decorations in the right hand. Boogie-woogie was pioneered by the Chicago-based Jimmy Yancey and the Boogie-Woogie Trio ( Albert Ammons , Pete Johnson and Meade Lux Lewis ). Chicago boogie-woogie performers included Clarence "Pine Top" Smith and Earl Hines , who "linked
7084-497: Is often associated with the California blues style, performed a successful transition from the early urban blues à la Lonnie Johnson and Leroy Carr to the jump blues style and dominated the blues-jazz scene at Los Angeles during the 1940s. The transition from country blues to urban blues that began in the 1920s was driven by the successive waves of economic crisis and booms that led many rural blacks to move to urban areas, in
7238-508: Is the name given to a person upon birth. The term may be applied to the surname , the given name , or the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a birth certificate or birth register may by that fact alone become the person's legal name . The assumption in the Western world is often that the name from birth (or perhaps from baptism or brit milah ) will persist to adulthood in
7392-461: Is the masculine form. The term née , having feminine grammatical gender , can be used to denote a woman's surname at birth that has been replaced or changed. In most English-speaking cultures, it is specifically applied to a woman's maiden name after her surname has changed due to marriage. The term né can be used to denote a man's surname at birth that has subsequently been replaced or changed. The diacritic mark (the acute accent ) over
7546-519: The African-American culture . The blues form is ubiquitous in jazz , rhythm and blues , and rock and roll , and is characterized by the call-and-response pattern, the blues scale , and specific chord progressions , of which the twelve-bar blues is the most common. Blue notes (or "worried notes"), usually thirds, fifths or sevenths flattened in pitch , are also an essential part of the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce
7700-482: The American South sometimes referred to as a jitterbug or a one-string in the early twentieth century) and the banjo are African-derived instruments that may have helped in the transfer of African performance techniques into the early blues instrumental vocabulary. The banjo seems to be directly imported from West African music. It is similar to the musical instrument that griots and other Africans such as
7854-589: The Billboard 200 chart, and received a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Album . While on tour to promote Consolers of the Lonely , White developed bronchitis and often lost his voice. Alison Mosshart , the frontwoman for the Kills (who was touring with the Raconteurs at the time) would often fill in as his vocal replacement. The chemistry between the two artists led them to collaborate, and in early 2009, White formed
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#17327721408478008-712: The Bumble Buzz pedal an octave fuzz built for Third Man by Vancouver, British Columbia's Union Tube and Transistor. In 2014, the pedal was reviewed by Premier Guitar, and is found in Jack's pedal setup. While the Raconteurs were still in development, White commissioned luthier Randy Parsons to create what White called the Triple Jet—a custom guitar styled after the Duo Jet double-cutaway guitar. Parsons's first product
8162-608: The Count Basie Orchestra were also concentrating on the blues, with 12-bar blues instrumentals such as Basie's " One O'Clock Jump " and " Jumpin' at the Woodside " and boisterous " blues shouting " by Jimmy Rushing on songs such as "Going to Chicago" and " Sent for You Yesterday ". A well-known big band blues tune is Glenn Miller 's " In the Mood ". In the 1940s, the jump blues style developed. Jump blues grew up from
8316-558: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 : Backwater rising, Southern peoples can't make no time I said, backwater rising, Southern peoples can't make no time And I can't get no hearing from that Memphis girl of mine Although the blues gained an association with misery and oppression, the lyrics could also be humorous and raunchy: Rebecca, Rebecca, get your big legs off of me, Rebecca, Rebecca, get your big legs off of me, It may be sending you baby, but it's worrying
8470-587: The Igbo played (called halam or akonting by African peoples such as the Wolof , Fula and Mandinka ). However, in the 1920s, when country blues began to be recorded, the use of the banjo in blues music was quite marginal and limited to individuals such as Papa Charlie Jackson and later Gus Cannon . Blues music also adopted elements from the "Ethiopian airs", minstrel shows and Negro spirituals , including instrumental and harmonic accompaniment. The style also
8624-777: The Theater Owners Booking Association in nightclubs such as the Cotton Club and juke joints such as the bars along Beale Street in Memphis. Several record companies, such as the American Record Corporation , Okeh Records , and Paramount Records , began to record African-American music. As the recording industry grew, country blues performers like Bo Carter , Jimmie Rodgers , Blind Lemon Jefferson , Lonnie Johnson , Tampa Red and Blind Blake became more popular in
8778-566: The Toronto International Film Festival . However, almost two years passed with no new releases, and on February 2, 2011, the band reported on their official website that they were disbanding. White emphasized that it was not due to health issues or artistic differences, "but mostly to preserve what is beautiful and special about the band". Rumors began to circulate in 2003 that White had collaborated with Electric Six for their song " Danger! High Voltage ". He and
8932-409: The degrees of the progression. For instance, for a blues in the key of C, C is the tonic chord (I) and F is the subdominant (IV). The last chord is the dominant (V) turnaround , marking the transition to the beginning of the next progression. The lyrics generally end on the last beat of the tenth bar or the first beat of the 11th bar, and the final two bars are given to the instrumentalist as
9086-456: The e is considered significant to its spelling, and ultimately its meaning, but is sometimes omitted. According to Oxford University 's Dictionary of Modern English Usage , the terms are typically placed after the current surname (e.g., " Margaret Thatcher , née Roberts" or " Bill Clinton , né Blythe"). Since they are terms adopted into English (from French), they do not have to be italicized , but they often are. In Polish tradition ,
9240-468: The "AAB" pattern was adopted to avoid the monotony of lines repeated three times. The lyrics are often sung in a rhythmic talk style rather than a melody, resembling a form of talking blues . Early blues frequently took the form of a loose narrative. African-American singers voiced their "personal woes in a world of harsh reality: a lost love, the cruelty of police officers, oppression at the hands of white folk, [and] hard times". This melancholy has led to
9394-438: The 1920s, among them "the big three"— Gertrude "Ma" Rainey , Bessie Smith , and Lucille Bogan . Mamie Smith , more a vaudeville performer than a blues artist, was the first African American to record a blues song, in 1920; her second record, "Crazy Blues", sold 75,000 copies in its first month. Ma Rainey, the "Mother of Blues", and Bessie Smith each "[sang] around center tones, perhaps in order to project her voice more easily to
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#17327721408479548-428: The 1920s, when the record industry created the marketing categories " race music " and " hillbilly music " to sell music by blacks for blacks and by whites for whites, respectively. At the time, there was no clear musical division between "blues" and "country", except for the ethnicity of the performer, and even that was sometimes documented incorrectly by record companies. Though musicologists can now attempt to define
9702-403: The 9-bar progression in " Sitting on Top of the World ", by Walter Vinson . The basic 12-bar lyric framework of many blues compositions is reflected by a standard harmonic progression of 12 bars in a 4/4 time signature . The blues chords associated to a twelve-bar blues are typically a set of three different chords played over a 12-bar scheme. They are labeled by Roman numbers referring to
9856-613: The African American community. Kentucky-born Sylvester Weaver was in 1923 the first to record the slide guitar style, in which a guitar is fretted with a knife blade or the sawed-off neck of a bottle. The slide guitar became an important part of the Delta blues . The first blues recordings from the 1920s are categorized as a traditional, rural country blues and a more polished city or urban blues. Country blues performers often improvised, either without accompaniment or with only
10010-533: The African call-and-response tradition that transformed into an interplay of voice and guitar, the blues form itself bears no resemblance to the melodic styles of the West African griots . Additionally, there are theories that the four-beats-per-measure structure of the blues might have its origins in the Native American tradition of pow wow drumming. Some scholars identify strong influences on
10164-726: The Billboard charts. Interviewers note the wide breadth of the music styles and eras he draws from for inspiration. In May 2015, the Music City Walk of Fame announced that it would be honoring White (along with Loretta Lynn) with a medallion at its re-opening in Nashville. On February 8, 2017, White was the honoree of the Producers and Engineers Wing of the Recording Academy during the annual Grammy Week celebration for his commitment "to working diligently to ensure that
10318-476: The Dawn album and was presented with a jacket for being a Five-Timer on the show. On July 19, 2024, White distributed test pressings of his upcoming sixth solo studio album by secretly including copies of it with purchases made at Third Man Records locations. Select tracks from the mysterious new album premiered on the WDET radio station that same day. White later announced the album to be called No Name , which
10472-720: The Dead Weather with Alison Mosshart of the Kills . In 2008, he recorded " Another Way to Die ", the title song for the 2008 James Bond film Quantum of Solace , alongside Alicia Keys , making them the only duet to perform a Bond theme. As a solo artist, White has released six solo studio albums , which have garnered critical and commercial success. He is a board member of the Library of Congress ' National Recording Preservation Foundation . His record label and studio Third Man Records releases vinyl recordings of his own work as well as that of other artists and local school children. His second studio album, Lazaretto (2014), broke
10626-459: The Dead Weather's color scheme. He also uses a black left-handed one since the Dead Weather album Sea of Cowards came out. He has also been known to play Fender Telecasters , featuring one in the music video for Loretta Lynn's "Portland, Oregon". White owns three Gretsch Rancher Falcons because he says that its bass tones make it his favorite acoustic to play live. They are collectively referred to as his "girlfriends", as each one has an image of
10780-610: The Dirtbombs , Two-Star Tabernacle , Rocket 455, and the Hentchmen . In 1998, the White Stripes were signed to Italy Records —a small and independent Detroit-based garage punk label—by Dave Buick. The band released its eponymous debut album in 1999, and a year later the album was followed up by the cult classic De Stijl . The album eventually peaked at number 38 in Billboard ' s Independent Albums chart. In 2001,
10934-545: The Electric Six both denied this, and the vocal work was credited officially to John S O'Leary. Later, Dick Valentine and Corey Martin (Electric Six band members) said White was involved but not paid. White worked with Loretta Lynn on her 2004 album Van Lear Rose , which he produced and performed on. The album was a critical and commercial success. In 2005, while collaborating with Brendan Benson —a fellow Michigan native whom White had worked with before—they composed
11088-616: The No Name Tour had 43 ticketed shows in the United States, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, South Korea, and the United Kingdom. On November 15, Jack White announced the second leg of the No Name World Tour, which will consist of 52 higher ticketed shows in eight more countries. It will span from November 17th 2024 to May 24, 2025. White has also had a minor acting career. He appeared in the 2003 film Cold Mountain as
11242-487: The Peas , and was still in that position when the band broke up in 1996. It was in this band that he learned about touring and performing onstage. After the band's split, he settled into working as an upholsterer by day while moonlighting in local bands, as well as performing solo shows. Though a bartender by trade, Meg began to learn to play the drums in 1997 and, according to Jack, "When she started to play drums with me, just on
11396-560: The Road Again' and " One Mic " (with Nas ) appeared on Music from The American Epic Sessions: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack . He was an executive producer of the film. White co-founded Third Man Records in 2001 with Ben Swank, formerly of the Ohio-based Soledad Brothers band. However, it was not until after he moved to Nashville that White purchased a space in 2009 to house his label. He explained, "For
11550-620: The Rolling Stones , Jeff Beck , Bob Dylan , and Insane Clown Posse . The Dead Weather announced their third album, Dodge & Burn , in July 2015 for a worldwide release in September by Third Man Records. Along with four previously released tracks, remixed and remastered, the album features eight new songs. The Raconteurs went on a hiatus in 2014, though at the time Benson believed that they were split. The group reunited in 2018 with
11704-664: The Top Ten charts in both the US and the UK, it was nominated for Best Rock Album at the 2006 Grammy Awards. The lead single, " Steady, As She Goes " was nominated for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal . The Raconteurs set out on tour to support the album, including eight dates as the opening act for Bob Dylan . The group's second album, Consolers of the Lonely , and its first single, " Salute Your Solution ", were released simultaneously in 2008. The album reached number seven on
11858-533: The U.S. In 2009, Jack White was featured in It Might Get Loud , a film in which he, Jimmy Page , and the Edge come together to discuss the electric guitar and each artist's different playing methods. White's first solo single, " Fly Farm Blues ", was written and recorded in 10 minutes during the filming of the movie that August. The single went on sale as a 7-inch vinyl record from Third Man Records and as
12012-489: The White Stripes, with Son House and Blind Willie McTell being among his favorite blues guitarists. He has said in interviews that Son House's "Grinnin' in Your Face" is his favorite song of all time. As a drummer, his heroes include Gene Krupa , Stewart Copeland , and Crow Smith from Flat Duo Jets . In 2005, on 60 Minutes , he told Mike Wallace that his life could have turned out differently. "I'd got accepted to
12166-571: The album, White employed two live bands, which he alternated between at random. The first, called the Peacocks, was all female and consisted of Ruby Amanfu , Carla Azar , Lillie Mae Rische , Maggie Björklund, Brooke Waggoner , and alternating bassists Bryn Davies and Catherine Popper . The other, the Buzzards, was all male and consisted of Daru Jones , Dominic Davis, Fats Kaplin , Ikey Owens , and Cory Younts . White said maintaining two bands
12320-814: The album, he appeared on Saturday Night Live as the musical guest and played at select festivals during the summer of 2012, including the Firefly Music Festival, Radio 1's Hackney Weekend , the Sasquatch! Music Festival , the Fuji Rock Festival in Japan (one of the biggest festivals in the world), and Rock Werchter in Belgium. Later in the year, he headlined Austin City Limits Music Festival . During his tour for
12474-400: The arts as one of the most prolific and renowned artists of the past two decades". White owns many instruments and, historically, has tended to use certain ones for specific projects or in certain settings. He has a preference for vintage guitars, many of which are associated with influential blues artists. Much of his equipment is custom-made, for both technical and aesthetic reasons. White is
12628-429: The arty facade lies one of the most cagey, darkly original rockers to come along since Kurt Cobain ." The album was followed up in 2003 by the commercially and critically successful Elephant . The critic at AllMusic wrote that the album "sounds even more pissed-off, paranoid and stunning than its predecessor ... darker and more difficult than White Blood Cells ". The album's first single, " Seven Nation Army ", became
12782-420: The back of a room". Smith would "sing a song in an unusual key, and her artistry in bending and stretching notes with her beautiful, powerful contralto to accommodate her own interpretation was unsurpassed". In 1920, the vaudeville singer Lucille Hegamin became the second black woman to record blues when she recorded "The Jazz Me Blues", and Victoria Spivey , sometimes called Queen Victoria or Za Zu Girl, had
12936-443: The band released White Blood Cells . The album's stripped-down garage rock sound drew critical acclaim in the US and beyond, making the White Stripes one of the more acclaimed bands of 2002, and forefront figures in the garage band revival of the time. John Peel , an influential DJ and the band's early advocate in the UK, said they were the most exciting thing he'd heard since Jimi Hendrix. The New York Times said of White, "beneath
13090-553: The band's signature song, reaching number one on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart for three weeks, winning the 2004 Grammy Award for Best Rock Song , and becoming an international sporting and protest anthem. The band's fifth album, Get Behind Me Satan , was recorded in White's own home and marked a change in the band's musical direction, with piano-driven melodies and experimentation with marimba and
13244-500: The beginning of the 20th century. They are now lost. Other recordings that are still available were made in 1924 by Lawrence Gellert . Later, several recordings were made by Robert W. Gordon , who became head of the Archive of American Folk Songs of the Library of Congress . Gordon's successor at the library was John Lomax . In the 1930s, Lomax and his son Alan made a large number of non-commercial blues recordings that testify to
13398-441: The blues are also closely related to the religious music of the African-American community, the spirituals . The first appearance of the blues is often dated to after the ending of slavery , with the development of juke joints occurring later. It is associated with the newly acquired freedom of the former slaves. Chroniclers began to report about blues music at the dawn of the 20th century. The first publication of blues sheet music
13552-662: The blues from the melodic structures of certain West African musical styles of the savanna and sahel. Lucy Durran finds similarities with the melodies of the Bambara people , and to a lesser degree, the Soninke people and Wolof people , but not as much of the Mandinka people . Gerard Kubik finds similarities to the melodic styles of both the west African savanna and central Africa, both of which were sources of enslaved people. No specific African musical form can be identified as
13706-578: The blues in the same year in Missouri ; and W.C. Handy , who first heard the blues in Tutwiler, Mississippi , in 1903. The first extensive research in the field was performed by Howard W. Odum , who published an anthology of folk songs from Lafayette County, Mississippi , and Newton County, Georgia , between 1905 and 1908. The first non-commercial recordings of blues music, termed proto-blues by Paul Oliver , were made by Odum for research purposes at
13860-468: The blues is usually dated after the Emancipation Act of 1863 , between 1860s and 1890s, a period that coincides with post- emancipation and later, the establishment of juke joints as places where African-Americans went to listen to music, dance, or gamble after a hard day's work. This period corresponds to the transition from slavery to sharecropping, small-scale agricultural production, and
14014-530: The blues narrowly in terms of certain chord structures and lyric forms thought to have originated in West Africa, audiences originally heard the music in a far more general way: it was simply the music of the rural south, notably the Mississippi Delta . Black and white musicians shared the same repertoire and thought of themselves as " songsters " rather than blues musicians. The notion of blues as
14168-411: The blues, usually dating back to the middle of the 18th century, when the slaves were Christianized and began to sing and play Christian hymns , in particular those of Isaac Watts , which were very popular. Before the blues gained its formal definition in terms of chord progressions, it was defined as the secular counterpart of spirituals. It was the low-down music played by rural blacks. Depending on
14322-485: The boogie-woogie wave and was strongly influenced by big band music. It uses saxophone or other brass instruments and the guitar in the rhythm section to create a jazzy, up-tempo sound with declamatory vocals. Jump blues tunes by Louis Jordan and Big Joe Turner , based in Kansas City, Missouri , influenced the development of later styles such as rock and roll and rhythm and blues. Dallas-born T-Bone Walker , who
14476-410: The coffee shops, local music venues, and record stores of the area. After a courtship, they married on September 21, 1996. In a reversal of tradition, he legally took her last name. After completing his apprenticeship, he started a one-man business of his own, Third Man Upholstery. The slogan of his business was "Your Furniture's Not Dead" and the color scheme was yellow and black—including a yellow van,
14630-610: The donation demonstrated a "commitment by a really busy songwriter and performer donating both his time on the board, and money to preserve our national song recording heritage". White also serves on the foundation's board . In July 2016, White joined Nashville's 45-member Gender Equality Council. On September 18, 2018, White donated $ 30,000 to The Outsiders House Museum for its preservation and restoration. On May 3, 2019, Wayne State University of Detroit, Michigan awarded White with an honorary doctor of humane letters degree "for his dedication to Detroit and significant contributions to
14784-715: The dual number one album of the year by Rough Trade UK. In December 2021, White announced the Supply Chain Issues Tour , which went on throughout North America and Europe and Asia, reaching a total of 103 shows. It kicked off with its first concert on April 8, 2022, in Detroit, Michigan – during which White proposed to his girlfriend Olivia Jean , with the two marrying onstage – and ended on February 24, 2023, in Aspen, Colorado. The tour covered North America and Europe, and. White performed on Saturday Night Live on February 25, 2023. He played two songs from his Fear of
14938-493: The duo canceled the remainder of their 2007 UK tour dates as well. White worked with other artists in the meantime, but revealed the band's plan to release a seventh album by the summer of 2009. On February 20, 2009—and on the final episode of Late Night with Conan O'Brien —the band made their first live appearance after the cancellation of the tour, and a documentary about their Canadian tour—titled The White Stripes: Under Great White Northern Lights —debuted later that year at
15092-479: The emphasis and impact of the lyrics, and vocal dramatics using shouts, groans, moans, and wails. The blues women thus effected changes in other types of popular singing that had spin-offs in jazz, Broadway musicals , torch songs of the 1930s and 1940s, gospel , rhythm and blues , and eventually rock and roll ." Urban male performers included popular black musicians of the era, such as Tampa Red , Big Bill Broonzy and Leroy Carr . An important label of this era
15246-471: The exact tape machines, the exact microphones, the exact amplifiers that I like, and so on." Using the slogan "Your Turntable's Not Dead", Third Man also presses vinyl records, for the artists on its label, for White's own musical ventures, as well as for third parties for hire. In March 2015, Third Man joined in the launch of TIDAL , a music streaming service that Jay-Z purchased and co-owns with other major music artists. Later that year, White partnered with
15400-429: The expansion of railroads in the southern United States. Several scholars characterize the development of blues music in the early 1900s as a move from group performance to individualized performance. They argue that the development of the blues is associated with the newly acquired freedom of the enslaved people. According to Lawrence Levine, "there was a direct relationship between the national ideological emphasis upon
15554-401: The feeling of cracking open a new record and looking at large artwork and having something you can hold in your hands." In support of the album, they launched a Canadian tour, in which they played a gig in every one of the country's provinces and territories. However, later that year, the band announced the cancellation of 18 tour dates due to Meg's struggle with acute anxiety . A few days later,
15708-437: The first single off the album, "High Ball Stepper". The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart and, in a personal triumph for White, broke the record for the largest sales week for a vinyl album since SoundScan began tracking sales in 1991. The album was widely praised among critics, and was nominated for three Grammy Awards: Best Alternative Music Album , as well as Best Rock Song and Best Rock Performance (for
15862-410: The four first bars, its repetition over the next four, and then a longer concluding line over the last bars. Early blues frequently took the form of a loose narrative, often relating the racial discrimination and other challenges experienced by African-Americans. Many elements, such as the call-and-response format and the use of blue notes, can be traced back to the music of Africa . The origins of
16016-417: The genre took its shape from the idiosyncrasies of individual performers. However, there are some characteristics that were present long before the creation of the modern blues. Call-and-response shouts were an early form of blues-like music; they were a "functional expression ... style without accompaniment or harmony and unbounded by the formality of any particular musical structure". A form of this pre-blues
16170-483: The greatest guitarists of all time. The New York Times called White "the coolest, weirdest and savviest rockstar of our time" in 2012.[ failed verification ] He and Meg were nominees for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2023, but were not inducted. John Anthony Gillis was born in Detroit, Michigan, on July 9, 1975, the youngest of ten children of Teresa (née Bandyk; born 1930) and Gorman M. Gillis. His mother's family
16324-751: The hell out of me. Hokum blues celebrated both comedic lyrical content and a boisterous, farcical performance style. Tampa Red and Georgia Tom 's " It's Tight Like That " (1928) is a sly wordplay with the double meaning of being " tight " with someone, coupled with a more salacious physical familiarity. Blues songs with sexually explicit lyrics were known as dirty blues . The lyrical content became slightly simpler in postwar blues, which tended to focus on relationship woes or sexual worries. Lyrical themes that frequently appeared in prewar blues, such as economic depression, farming, devils, gambling, magic, floods and drought, were less common in postwar blues. The writer Ed Morales claimed that Yoruba mythology played
16478-407: The hole and a less-than-high-quality solid body electric". His home studio in Nashville contains two rooms ("I want everyone close, focused, feeling like we're in it together.") with two pieces of equipment: a Neve mixing console, and two Studer A800 2-inch 8-track tape recorders. In his introduction in the documentary film, It Might Get Loud , White showcases his minimalist style by constructing
16632-454: The huge variety of proto-blues styles, such as field hollers and ring shouts . A record of blues music as it existed before 1920 can also be found in the recordings of artists such as Lead Belly and Henry Thomas . All these sources show the existence of many different structures distinct from twelve- , eight- , or sixteen-bar . The social and economic reasons for the appearance of the blues are not fully known. The first appearance of
16786-560: The idea of something beautiful, something romantic. Perfection, making things perfectly in time and perfectly free of extraneous noise, is not something to aspire to! Why would anyone aspire to such a thing? —Jack White White has long been a proponent of analog equipment and the associated working methods. Beginning in the fifth grade, he and his childhood friend, Dominic Suchyta, would listen to records in White's attic on weekends and began to record cover songs on an old four-track reel-to-reel tape machine. The White Stripes' first album
16940-434: The individual, the popularity of Booker T. Washington's teachings, and the rise of the blues." Levine stated that "psychologically, socially, and economically, African-Americans were being acculturated in a way that would have been impossible during slavery, and it is hardly surprising that their secular music reflected this as much as their religious music did." There are few characteristics common to all blues music, because
17094-585: The key artists in the garage rock revival of the 2000s. For his various collaborations and solo work, White has won regional, national and international awards, including twelve Grammy Awards (from a total of 33 nominations). Nashville mayor Karl Dean awarded White the title of "Nashville Music City Ambassador" in 2011. Rolling Stone ranked him number 70 on its 2010 list of "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time". David Fricke 's 2011 list ranked him at number 17. He has won twelve Grammy Awards, with 33 nominations, and three solo albums have reached number one on
17248-432: The longest time I did not want to have my own studio gear, mostly because with the White Stripes I wanted to have the constriction of going into a studio and having a set time of 10 days or two weeks to finish an album, and using whatever gear they happen to have there. After 10 to 15 years of recording like that I felt that it was finally time for me to have my own place to produce music, and have exactly what I want in there:
17402-650: The low rate of literacy among rural African Americans at the time. Reports of blues music in southern Texas and the Deep South were written at the dawn of the 20th century. Charles Peabody mentioned the appearance of blues music at Clarksdale, Mississippi , and Gate Thomas reported similar songs in southern Texas around 1901–1902. These observations coincide more or less with the recollections of Jelly Roll Morton , who said he first heard blues music in New Orleans in 1902; Ma Rainey , who remembered first hearing
17556-525: The music industry during the 1920s and 1930s. Other chord progressions, such as 8-bar forms, are still considered blues; examples include " How Long Blues ", " Trouble in Mind ", and Big Bill Broonzy 's " Key to the Highway ". There are also 16-bar blues , such as Ray Charles 's instrumental "Sweet 16 Bars" and Herbie Hancock 's " Watermelon Man ". Idiosyncratic numbers of bars are occasionally used, such as
17710-405: The normal course of affairs—either throughout life or until marriage. Some reasons for changes of a person's name include middle names , diminutive forms, changes relating to parental status (due to one's parents' divorce or adoption by different parents), and gender transition . The French and English-adopted née is the feminine past participle of naître , which means "to be born". Né
17864-495: The propulsive left-hand rhythms of the ragtime pianists with melodic figures similar to those of Armstrong's trumpet in the right hand". The smooth Louisiana style of Professor Longhair and, more recently, Dr. John blends classic rhythm and blues with blues styles. Another development in this period was big band blues. The " territory bands " operating out of Kansas City , the Bennie Moten orchestra, Jay McShann , and
18018-449: The quality and integrity of recorded music are captured and preserved". Much has been made of White's "showmanship" and affectations. Since the beginning, critics have debated the "riddle" of White's self-awareness against his claims of authenticity, with people falling on both sides of the issue. Joe Hagan of The New York Times asked in 2001, "Is Mr. White, a 25-year-old former upholsterer from southwest Detroit, concocting this stuff with
18172-559: The record for most first-week vinyl sales since 1991, holding that record until 2021. White has an extensive collection of guitars and other instruments and has a preference for vintage items that often have connections to famous blues artists. He is a vocal advocate for analog technology and recording techniques. A key artist of the 2000s garage rock revival , White is known for his distinctive musical techniques and eccentricity. He has won 12 Grammy Awards among other accolades . Rolling Stone included him on their 2010 and 2023 lists of
18326-417: The release of two singles. They released their third studio album, Help Us Stranger , in 2019. Critically praised, the album was followed by a US tour. On January 30, 2012, White released " Love Interruption " as the first single off his debut, self-produced solo album, Blunderbuss , which was released on April 24, 2012. The album ultimately debuted number one on the Billboard 200 chart, and in support of
18480-458: The religious community a musician belonged to, it was more or less considered a sin to play this low-down music: blues was the devil's music. Musicians were therefore segregated into two categories: gospel singers and blues singers, guitar preachers and songsters. However, when rural black music began to be recorded in the 1920s, both categories of musicians used similar techniques: call-and-response patterns, blue notes, and slide guitars. Gospel music
18634-456: The savannah, are conspicuously absent. According to the historian Paul Oliver , "the roots of the blues were not to be found in the coastal and forest regions of Africa. Rather... the blues was rooted in ... the savanna hinterland, from Senegambia through Mali, Burkina Faso, Northern Ghana, Niger, and northern Nigeria". Additionally, ethnomusicologist John Storm Roberts has argued that "The parallels between African savanna-belt string-playing and
18788-467: The single "Blue Orchid", White employed an Electro-Harmonix Polyphonic Octave Generator (POG), which let him mix in several octave effects into one along with the dry signal. He plugs this setup into a 1970s Fender Twin Reverb "Silverface" and two 100-Watt Sears Silvertone 1485 6×10 amplifiers. He also used a 1960s Fender Twin Reverb "Blackface". On occasion, White also plays other instruments, such as
18942-515: The single direct ancestor of the blues. However the call-and-response format can be traced back to the music of Africa . That blue notes predate their use in blues and have an African origin is attested to by "A Negro Love Song", by the English composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor , from his African Suite for Piano , written in 1898, which contains blue third and seventh notes . The Diddley bow (a homemade one-stringed instrument found in parts of
19096-665: The song " Another Way to Die ", the theme song for the James Bond film Quantum of Solace . In October 2009, Mosshart confirmed that the second album was "halfway done", and the first single, " Die by the Drop ", was released on March 30, 2010. The new album (again on the Third Man Records label) was titled Sea of Cowards and was released on May 7 of that year in Ireland, on May 10 in the United Kingdom, and on May 11 in
19250-646: The song " Lazaretto "). During the supporting tour, he performed the longest show of his career on July 30, 2014, at the Detroit Masonic Temple , and later performed as one of the headliners at the Coachella Festival over two weekends in April 2015. On April 14, 2015, White announced that the festival would be his last electric set, followed by one acoustic show in each of the five U.S. states he had yet to perform in, before he would be taking
19404-446: The songs "can't be sung without a full heart and a troubled spirit", conditions that have inspired countless blues songs. Though the use of the phrase in African-American music may be older, it has been attested to in print since 1912, when Hart Wand 's " Dallas Blues " became the first copyrighted blues composition. In lyrics, the phrase is often used to describe a depressed mood. Early traditional blues verses often consisted of
19558-406: The southeastern "delicate and lyrical" Piedmont blues tradition, which used an elaborate ragtime-based fingerpicking guitar technique. Georgia also had an early slide tradition, with Curley Weaver , Tampa Red , "Barbecue Bob" Hicks and James "Kokomo" Arnold as representatives of this style. The lively Memphis blues style, which developed in the 1920s and 1930s near Memphis, Tennessee ,
19712-533: The suggestion of an Igbo origin for blues, because of the reputation the Igbo had throughout plantations in the Americas for their melancholic music and outlook on life when they were enslaved. Other historians have argued that there is little evidence of Sub-Sahelian influence in the blues as "elaborate polyrhythm, percussion on African drums (as opposed to European drums), [and] collective participation" which are characteristic of West-Central African music below
19866-507: The techniques of many blues guitarists are remarkable. The big kora of Senegal and Guinea are played in a rhythmic-melodic style that uses constantly changing rhythms, often providing a ground bass overlaid with complex treble patterns, while vocal supplies a third rhythmic layer. Similar techniques can be found in hundreds of blues records". The lyrics often relate troubles experienced within African American society. For instance Blind Lemon Jefferson 's "Rising High Water Blues" (1927) tells of
20020-492: The term z domu (literally meaning "of the house", de domo in Latin ) may be used, with rare exceptions, meaning the same as née . Blues Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated amongst African-Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spirituals , work songs , field hollers , shouts , chants , and rhymed simple narrative ballads from
20174-450: The trance-like rhythm and call-and-response, and they form a repetitive effect called a groove . Characteristic of the blues since its Afro-American origins, the shuffles played a central role in swing music . The simplest shuffles, which were the clearest signature of the R&;B wave that started in the mid-1940s, were a three-note riff on the bass strings of the guitar. When this riff
20328-447: The trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove . Blues music is characterized by its lyrics , bass lines , and instrumentation . Early traditional blues verses consisted of a single line repeated four times. It was only in the first decades of the 20th century that the most common current structure became standard: the AAB pattern , consisting of a line sung over
20482-416: The watch manufacturer Shinola to open a retail location in Detroit. White has provided financial support to institutions in his hometown of Detroit. In 2009, White donated almost $ 170,000 towards the renovation of the baseball diamond in southwest Detroit's Clark Park. The Detroit Masonic Temple was nearly foreclosed on in 2013 after it was revealed that owners owed $ 142,000 in back taxes. In June 2013, it
20636-599: Was Polish, while his father was Scottish-Canadian. He was raised a Catholic , and both of his parents worked for the Archdiocese of Detroit as the building maintenance superintendent and secretary in the cardinal's office, respectively. Gillis became an altar boy , which landed him an uncredited role in the 1987 movie The Rosary Murders , filmed mainly at Most Holy Redeemer parish in southwest Detroit. He attended Cass Technical High School in Detroit. Gillis' early musical influences were his older brothers, who were in
20790-540: Was a formally trained musician, composer and arranger who helped to popularize the blues by transcribing and orchestrating blues in an almost symphonic style, with bands and singers. He became a popular and prolific composer, and billed himself as the "Father of the Blues"; however, his compositions can be described as a fusion of blues with ragtime and jazz, a merger facilitated using the Cuban habanera rhythm that had long been
20944-511: Was a free-born black woman from Pennsylvania who was working as a schoolteacher in South Carolina, instructing both slaves and freedmen, and wrote that she "came home with the blues" because she felt lonesome and pitied herself. She overcame her depression and later noted a number of songs, such as "Poor Rosy", that were popular among the slaves. Although she admitted being unable to describe the manner of singing she heard, Forten wrote that
21098-399: Was closely related to ragtime , which developed at about the same time, though the blues better preserved "the original melodic patterns of African music". The musical forms and styles that are now considered the blues as well as modern country music arose in the same regions of the southern United States during the 19th century. Recorded blues and country music can be found as far back as
21252-418: Was featured on The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams , released on October 4, 2011. In that same year, he produced and played on Wanda Jackson 's album The Party Ain't Over . To her delight, his studio also released the album on a 7-inch vinyl . White also appeared on AHK-toong BAY-bi Covered , performing a cover of U2 's " Love Is Blindness ". White has worked with other artists as well, including Beck ,
21406-457: Was heard in slave ring shouts and field hollers , expanded into "simple solo songs laden with emotional content". Blues has evolved from the unaccompanied vocal music and oral traditions of slaves imported from West Africa and rural blacks into a wide variety of styles and subgenres, with regional variations across the United States. Although blues (as it is now known) can be seen as a musical style based on both European harmonic structure and
21560-416: Was in 1908. Blues has since evolved from unaccompanied vocal music and oral traditions of slaves into a wide variety of styles and subgenres. Blues subgenres include country blues , Delta blues and Piedmont blues , as well as urban blues styles such as Chicago blues and West Coast blues . World War II marked the transition from acoustic to electric blues and the progressive opening of blues music to
21714-440: Was in the sense of a sad state of mind that John James Audubon wrote to his wife that he "had the blues". In Henry David Thoreau 's book Walden , he mentions "the blues" in the chapter reflecting on his time in solitude. He wrote his account of his personal quest in 1845, although it was not published until 1854. The phrase "the blues" was written by Charlotte Forten , then aged 25, in her diary on December 14, 1862. She
21868-581: Was influenced by jug bands such as the Memphis Jug Band or the Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers . Performers such as Frank Stokes , Sleepy John Estes , Robert Wilkins , Kansas Joe McCoy , Casey Bill Weldon and Memphis Minnie used a variety of unusual instruments such as washboard , fiddle , kazoo or mandolin . Memphis Minnie was famous for her virtuoso guitar style. Pianist Memphis Slim began his career in Memphis, but his distinct style
22022-482: Was largely recorded in the attic of his parents' home. As their fame grew beyond Detroit, the Stripes became known for their affected innocence and stripped-down playing style. In particular, White became distinguished for his nasal vocal delivery and loose, explosive guitar delivery. In an early New York Times concert review from 2001, Ann Powers said that, while White's playing was "ingenious", he "created more challenges by playing an acoustic guitar with paper taped over
22176-670: Was nevertheless using musical forms that were compatible with Christian hymns and therefore less marked by the blues form than its secular counterpart. The American sheet music publishing industry produced a great deal of ragtime music. By 1912, the sheet music industry had published three popular blues-like compositions, precipitating the Tin Pan Alley adoption of blues elements: "Baby Seals' Blues", by Baby Franklin Seals (arranged by Artie Matthews ); "Dallas Blues", by Hart Wand ; and " The Memphis Blues ", by W.C. Handy . Handy
22330-426: Was painted copper color. However, he decided to create a second version with a completely copper body, which White began to use instead. For the Raconteurs first tour, White also played a Gretsch Anniversary Jr. with a Bigsby vibrato tailpiece and three Filtertron pickups. He later added a custom Gretsch Anniversary Jr. with two cutaways, a lever-activated mute system, a built-in and retractable bullet microphone, and
22484-420: Was played over the bass and the drums, the groove "feel" was created. Shuffle rhythm is often vocalized as " dow , da dow , da dow , da" or " dump , da dump , da dump , da": it consists of uneven, or "swung", eighth notes. On a guitar this may be played as a simple steady bass or it may add to that stepwise quarter note motion from the fifth to the sixth of the chord and back. Hart Wand 's " Dallas Blues "
22638-430: Was published in 1912; W.C. Handy 's " The Memphis Blues " followed in the same year. The first recording by an African American singer was Mamie Smith 's 1920 rendition of Perry Bradford 's " Crazy Blues ". But the origins of the blues were some decades earlier, probably around 1890. This music is poorly documented, partly because of racial discrimination in U.S. society, including academic circles, and partly because of
22792-575: Was released on August 2, 2024. It received acclaim from critics, who noted his return to blues, the album's raw nature and the similarity to the sound he championed with the White Stripes. The method of the album's release was said by the Detroit Free Press to have "made a stand for rock mystique". Jack White has been on the "No Name Tour" since July 27, 2024. Shows on the first leg of the tour took place in small, club-like venues and were announced only days before they happened. The first leg of
22946-403: Was released on March 23, 2018. Like its two preceding albums, it landed at number one on the Billboard 200 chart. In promotion of his album, White appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and on Saturday Night Live as the musical guest, where he played " Over and Over and Over " and "Connected by Love". White released Jack White: Kneeling at The Anthem D.C. , his first concert film as
23100-507: Was replaced by the term rhythm and blues . This rapidly evolving market was mirrored by Billboard magazine's Rhythm & Blues chart . This marketing strategy reinforced trends in urban blues music such as the use of electric instruments and amplification and the generalization of the blues beat, the blues shuffle , which became ubiquitous in rhythm and blues (R&B). This commercial stream had important consequences for blues music, which, together with jazz and gospel music , became
23254-511: Was revealed that White had footed the entire bill. To thank him for the donation, the temple has decided to rename its second largest theater the Jack White Theater. The National Recording Preservation Foundation received an inaugural gift of $ 200,000 from White to use toward restoring and preserving deteriorating sound recordings on media such as reel-to-reel tape and old cylinders . The foundation's director, Eric J. Schwartz said
23408-444: Was smoother and had some swing elements. Many blues musicians based in Memphis moved to Chicago in the late 1930s or early 1940s and became part of the urban blues movement. City or urban blues styles were more codified and elaborate, as a performer was no longer within their local, immediate community, and had to adapt to a larger, more varied audience's aesthetic. Classic female urban and vaudeville blues singers were popular in
23562-555: Was the Chicago-based Bluebird Records . Before World War II, Tampa Red was sometimes referred to as "the Guitar Wizard". Carr accompanied himself on the piano with Scrapper Blackwell on guitar, a format that continued well into the 1950s with artists such as Charles Brown and even Nat "King" Cole . Boogie-woogie was another important style of 1930s and early 1940s urban blues. While the style
23716-456: Was too expensive, and abandoned the practice at the conclusion of the tour. Blunderbuss was ultimately nominated for several Grammys, including Album of the Year, Best Rock Album, and Best Rock Song for "Freedom at 21". On April 1, 2014, White announced his second solo album, Lazaretto , inspired by plays and poetry he had written as a teen. It was released on June 10, 2014, simultaneously with
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