The Genius of Jack White

Ramble on Jack White
Published Stereoboard.com http://www.stereoboard.com/content/view/97494/9
21-05-10

It’s the kind of thing my dad would call racket. Heck to me it’s a hell of a racket too, but for some inexplicable reason, it’s fantastic. To start with, somebody who’d only started playing a week before could have been drumming. And yet, the simplicity works. It lets the rest of the music and melody (for want of a better word) do the work.

The rest of the music emanates from a variety of beaten up, plastic in some cases, dishevelled guitars. For any guitarist who knows their stuff, ‘tone’ is something of a holy grail. You either got it or you ain’t. Variables can be guitar wood, room temperature, even the sweat on your hands according to some connoisseurs. A plastic guitar is almost sacrilege.  And when the second guitar was obtained in exchange for moving a fridge, you know you’re not dealing with the best of equipment. But somehow it sounds amazing. It’s the absolute lack of ‘tone’ that makes it such a great ‘tone.’

Through this melee of simplistic drums and tonelessly tone-full guitars comes a shrieking, piercing vocal delivery. This is no Tom Jones behind the mic. Not even close. But the feeling, the emotion, the near desperation that the words must be sung, screamed and bellowed to give people a message makes it essential that you listen. The incorporation of old style blues with new rock, new technologies and new ideas is something attempted but not previously successful. The stripped back line up adds to the sound rather than leaves it lacking in areas.

And the genius (yeah…I said it) behind this cacophony of chaos?

None other than Jack White.

My first memories of White are at the Oxegen festival a few years back when I saw him front the Raconteurs. I wasn’t blown away, but, then again, I probably wasn’t in any state to be casting musical judgements. Months later however, I came across the Raconteurs website and was thoroughly dumbstruck. It was as if everything I’d ever wanted in a band had been concocted into this arrangement of bluesy rock and roll and served to me on a big shiny plate.

Now, after years of listening to the likes of Thin Lizzy and Rory Gallagher and wishing I’d been born about 30 years earlier so that I might have seen the talismanic rockers live, I had found a band that I might actually be able to see. Strike that. A band that I’d actually seen. Of course, Thin Lizzy plan to tour next year, but it’s not Thin Lizzy without Phil Lynott.

More research into the Raconteurs led me to The White Stripes. Not everybody’s cup of tea- as described above. But there’s something there that no other band in the world have. It seems that they’re playing only what they feel, what they want to play and this comes across in the energy of their performances. White speaks of the ‘personality of a show.’ Each White Stripes gig is its own entity, no set list, no structure and purely led by gut feeling and instinct. It’s proper music. Much like seeing something that’s come off an assembly line and a similar product that’s been hand crafted at every stage of production. The latter is more often than not of a much higher quality. Such is the music of the White Stripes.

White’s versatility as a musician, songwriter and performer is something not often seen. He’s today’s equivalent of all the greats who have gone before him. He’s today’s Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Lynott or Gallagher. It’s as if he should have been born in the late 50s or 60s, but somebody decided to hold him back for a few years. In doing so, White was allowed to soak up influences right through from the 20s blues men to the hard rock 80s.

To top it off, unlike many modern musicians of global fame, considerable talent and more considerable monies, he appears to be a real gentleman. He’s a bit of an eccentric of course, the kind of guy that Johnny Depp would play if his life were made into a movie.

The first scenes of ‘It Could Get Loud’ include him making a guitar out of a block of wood, a hand-made pick up of sorts, a few bits of wire and an old amplifier. However, through the rest of the film, when put along side the great Jimmy Page and the Edge, White comes across as more down to earth, more human almost than the two more experienced performers. Throughout, White’s guitar, piano and song writing skills far outshine those of the other two. Where on the outside, one might think of White as the strangest he comes across as the least so.

Recent release ‘Under Great White Northern Lights’ is a documentary following Jack and Meg White through Canada for a series of gigs to mark the band’s 10^th anniversary. Again, Jack is the opposite of what one might expect in a world famous musician. Sharing stories with Inuit elders and immersing himself in their culture in customs, at no point do we get the impression that White feels he is better than his companions. Impromptu performances in unlikely places epitomise the attitude of a band that just want to play music regardless of who it’s to, where it is, or how much they might get paid.

It’s refreshing to see somebody purely in it for the music. Early interviews of the pair show them saying they’ll probably never get it out of Detroit, that nobody really likes their music as it’s too different, but even this doesn’t seem to bother them.

In the day where most of the true greats have already gone, and today’s poor attempts get swallowed up by greed and fame, Jack White stands out as the exception. His respect for true musical values is foremost at all times, along with a genuine love for what he does. I can only hope that, although the old order has passed, the new order of rock and blues can start here with Jack White and more like him can be uncovered. People say rock and roll is dead. Not yet it’s not.