Jack White Early life:
American guitarist, singer, and songwriter Jack White was born in Detroit, Michigan, on July 9, 1975. He originally rose to recognition with The White Stripes before going on to play with other bands and eventually starting a lucrative solo career.
Jack White , born John Anthony Gillis, was raised in Detroit as the youngest of 10 Polish-Scottish children. His mother was employed by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese as a secretary, and his father was a maintenance guy.
Jack White played drums or guitar in several Detroit bands and worked as an upholsterer for a number of years after leaving college after just one semester. He became deeply in love with Mississippi Delta blues at this period. He married Meg White in 1996, adopted her last name, and the two of them started a band called The White Stripes.
Jack’s powerful songwriting, passionate vocals, explosive guitar work, and more daring production technique were all expertly balanced by Meg’s simple yet potent drumming. The White Stripes developed a vibrant, unique 21st-century take on the blues and emerged as leaders of the late 1990s garage-rock renaissance.
Jack White and Meg continued to perform together even after their divorce in 2000. They frequently posed as siblings in public to allay concerns about cooperating after their divorce. The pair put out seven highly regarded albums, including their self-titled debut (1999), White Blood Cells (2001), the Grammy-winning, million-selling Elephant (2003), and Icky Thump (2007). In 2011, their musical collaboration was formally terminated.
Jack White , meanwhile, had an appearance and contributed to the soundtrack of the 2003 movie Cold Mountain. He went from Detroit to Nashville, where he started Third Man Records, married British supermodel-singer Karen Elson (with whom he had two daughters before divorcing in 2013), and produced country music icon Loretta Lynn’s album Van Lear Rose (2004).
In addition, he co-founded The Raconteurs, a power-pop group that released Broken Boy Soldiers (2006), Consolers of the Lonely (2008), and Help Us Stranger (2019), as well as He played drums on Horehound (2009), Sea of Cowards (2010), and Dodge and Burn (2015) with the Dead Weather.
Blunderbuss, Jack’s 2012 debut solo album, showcased his developing songwriting depth and broadened his musical style. Lazaretto (2014), his subsequent album, was highly praised.
His passion for vinyl was particularly evident in Lazaretto, which featured a number of technological advancements created exclusively for turntable enthusiasts. Rap and funk were combined in the avant-garde Boarding House Reach (2018). He released Jack White: Kneeling at the Anthem D.C., a concert film, that same year.
American rock duo The White Stripes, based in Detroit, were well-known for fusing Mississippi Delta blues, punk, folk, and country music. The initial members were drummer Meg White (born Megan Martha White on December 10, 1974, in Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan) and guitarist-vocalist Jack White (born John Anthony Gillis on July 9, 1975).
Jack worked in furniture upholstery during the 1990s, while Meg held a variety of service positions. Jack developed an interest in the sounds of Detroit punk pioneers like Iggy and the Stooges and MC5 after his employer, Brian Muldoon, introduced him to new music.
The Upholsterers is the name of the blues-inspired track that Jack and Muldoon recorded. In addition to these influences, Jack became a drummer for the popular “cowpunk” group Goober and the Peas in 1993. Jack’s later work was influenced by that group’s blend of rockabilly and punk, as well as their embroidered Western costumes and cowboy hats.
Jack and Meg got married shortly after Goober and the Peas broke up in 1996. (The media finally discovered their 1996 marriage license and 2000 divorce document, despite their later claims to be siblings.) The pair started creating the sound of The White Stripes that same year after moving into Jack’s childhood home.
They frequently played in Detroit with the country-rock group Two-Star Tabernacle, which featured Jack and Dan Miller, the former Frontman of Goober and the Peas. The White Stripes released their self-titled debut in 1999 and De Stijl in 2000 after signing with the independent label Sympathy for the Record Industry.
White Blood Cells (2001) was their breakthrough. The pair became media favorites after Michel Gondry’s smart video for “Fell in Love with a Girl” was heavily rotated on MTV. Elephant (2003), a percussion-heavy album that included Meg’s vocal début, came next.
Elephant sold more than a million sales and took home the Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album. The Hardest Button to Button and “Seven Nation Army” both became huge hits, with “Seven Nation Army” becoming one of the most well-known riffs in music history.
Jack made an appearance in Cold Mountain (2003) and wrote five songs for the Grammy-nominated soundtrack. Additionally, he produced Loretta Lynn’s honky-tonk album Van Lear Rose (2004), which brought Lynn to a new audience and won two Grammy Awards.
Get Behind Me Satan (2005) won the White Stripes another Grammy, and their first Top 40 hit on the Billboard singles chart was Icky Thump (2007). Additionally, Icky Thump became the third album by White Stripes to win Best Alternative Music Album.
On the last broadcast of Late Night with Conan O’Brien in February 2009, the band got back together for a single performance. As a member of The Raconteurs, Jack continued to broaden his musical horizons by dabbling with power pop.
The band swiftly rose to prominence on the summer concert circuit after releasing two highly regarded albums in 2006 and 2008. In May 2009, Meg wed guitarist Jackson Smith, the son of rock icon Patti Smith. At the same time, Jack started The Dead Weather, a bluesy, psychedelic rock group whose debut album, Horehound, came out in July of the same year.
In Nashville, Jack established Third Man Records in March 2009 as a label, record store, and performance space. Third Man embraced the tangible culture of the album era—turntables, gatefold covers, and premium vinyl releases—while the majority of the music industry was moving toward digital downloads.
Fans started to worry that The White Stripes’ absence would be permanent as Jack focused more on Third Man and other endeavors, such as producing Wanda Jackson’s 2011 comeback album The Party Ain’t Over. When Jack and Meg declared in February 2011 that they would no longer record or perform as The White Stripes, it was verified. Jack began his solo career the next year with the multifaceted Blunderbuss.