I think Jack White has a perfect seat to perch on and reflect or even tear apart the American condition. By any stretch, he’s the perfect working man’s hero, who went from a custom upholsterer living by his hands, to a musician living by his hands, fusing his guitar and piano expertise. Paired with his unorthodox singing style screech, he was able to amass a fortune and rock & roll history followed. Not many blues rockers get to headline Glastonbury or Coachella.
Then he took on the task to start his own label, self-release, promote and elevate his own work and some of the next wave of creators. He’s successfully opened and ran 2 physical record store locations, parlayed that into a major musical re-release retrospective for Paramount Records, coaxed Loretta Lynn and Wanda Jackson back into the studio, and is now one of the bigger domestic record pressing businesses in North America, which has allowed him to spearhead some amazing reissues like Charlie Patton, Blind Willie McTell and even early Sun Records 7″.
He is the prototype for American exceptionalism mostly because everything he does not only enriches the country, but it also pays American workers to do so. It’s probably one of the reasons he’s shied away from ProTools, in favor of more of the analog processes, because not only is it more satisfying to a guy like Jack White, but because it involves more of us. More session players, and more musicians onstage. I think that’s something supremely respectable.