Jack White Caricature

Jack White Caricature, illustrated here in NYC on March 12, 2012, age 37.

John Anthony White is an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer. He is best known as the lead singer and guitarist of the duo The White Stripes, but has also had success in other bands and as a solo artist. White has enjoyed consistent critical and popular success and is widely credited as one of the key artists in the garage rock revival of the 2000s.

Growing up in Detroit, at 19 years old, Jack had landed his first professional gig as the drummer for the Detroit band Goober & the Peas, and was still in that position when the band broke up in 1996.

He met Megan White at the Memphis Smoke restaurant where she worked, and they frequented the coffee shops, local music venues, and record stores of the area. After a courtship, they got married on September 21, 1996. In a reversal of tradition, he took her last name.

The couple became a band, calling themselves The White Stripes, with Megan on drums, and two months later performed their first show at the Gold Dollar in Detroit.

The band released its eponymous debut album in 1999, and a year later the album was followed up by the cult classic, De Stijl. n 2001, 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.

he album was followed up in 2003 by the commercially and critically successful Elephant. The album’s first single, “Seven Nation Army”, became 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.

On February 2, 2011, the band reported on their official website that they were disbanding.

In 2005, while collaborating with Brendan Benson—a fellow Michigan native whom White had worked with before — they composed 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 result was the band’s debut album, Broken Boy Soldiers. Reaching the Top Ten charts in both the US and the UK, it was nominated for Best Rock Album at the 2006 Grammy Awards.

White founded Third Man Records in 2001. However, it was not until after he moved to Nashville that White purchased a space in 2009 to house his label. 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.

White has won regional, national and international awards, including twelve Grammy Awards and has been nominated for 33.

He currently resides in Nashville, Tennessee.