Jack White Returns to Detroit: Third Man Sets up Shop
Jack White’s boutique label, Third Man Records, finds space in familiar territory.
The garage rock seen of the late ’90s and early 2000s produced some of Detroit’s best modern-day rock musicians. Among them, Jack White has achieved success at the industry’s highest level as a songwriter, producer, and guitar hero. He lives in Nashville now, but Detroit was his cauldron.
The White Stripes cut their teeth in the Cass Corridor and, since, there’s been resounding and recurring coolness of the iconic kind with his other bands, The Raconteurs, The Dead Weather, as well as his two recent solo albums Blunderbuss and Lazaretto, And tip your hat to his quiet but necessary financial contributions at the Masonic Temple and the Clark Park Baseball Diamond.
Now, White returns to the city he was born and raised in to expand his boutique label, Third Man Records.
Another staple of the Detroit scene was Ben Blackwell. He’s more than a confidant of White’s, he’s family. These days — because he’s not too busy drumming with The Dirtbombs anymore, sadly) he oversees day to day Third Man operations as its production and self-proclaimed “psychedelic stooge.”
Ben Blackwell spoke with WDET’s Travis Wright about the real estate partnership Third Man forged with Shinola to open Detroit’s newest record store (and more …?).
-Eli Newman, Culture City Associate Producer
