page_title: Jack White
section_title: The White Stripes
hierarchical_section_title: Jack White / Career / The White Stripes
caption_attribution_description: The White Stripes at the 2007 O2 Wireless festival in London
context_page_description: 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. He has won twelve Grammy Awards, and all three of his solo albums have reached number one on the Billboard charts. Rolling Stone ranked him number 70 on its 2010 list of "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time". David Fricke's 2011 list ranked him at number 17.
  After moonlighting in several underground Detroit bands as a drummer, White founded The White Stripes with fellow Detroit native and then-wife Meg White in 1997. Their 2001 breakthrough album, White Blood Cells, brought them international fame with the hit single and accompanying music video "Fell in Love with a Girl". This recognition provided White opportunities to collaborate with famous artists, including Loretta Lynn and Bob Dylan.
context_section_description: 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. It was in this band that he learned about touring and performing onstage. After the band's split, he settled into working as an upholsterer by day while moonlighting in local bands, as well as performing solo shows. Though a bartender by trade, Meg began to learn to play the drums in 1997 and, according to Jack, "When she started to play drums with me, just on a lark, it felt liberating and refreshing." The couple became a band, calling themselves The White Stripes, and two months later performed their first show at the Gold Dollar in Detroit.
  Despite being married, Jack and Meg publicly presented themselves as siblings. They kept to a chromatic theme, dressing only in red, white, and black. They began their career as part of Michigan's underground garage rock music scene. They played along with and opened for more established local bands such as Bantam Rooster, the Dirtbombs, Two-Star Tabernacle, Rocket 455, and the Hentchmen. In 1998, the White Stripes were signed to Italy Records—a small and independent Detroit-based garage punk label—by Dave Buick. The band released its eponymous debut album in 1999, and a year later the album was followed up by the cult classic, De Stijl. The album eventually peaked at number 38 in Billboard's Independent Albums chart.
  In 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, and forefront figures in the garage band revival of the time. John Peel, an influential DJ and the band's early advocate in the UK, said they were the most exciting thing he'd heard since Jimi Hendrix. The New York Times said of White, "beneath the arty facade lies one of the most cagey, darkly original rockers to come along since Kurt Cobain." The album was followed up in 2003 by the commercially and critically successful Elephant. The critic at Allmusic wrote that the album "sounds even more pissed-off, paranoid and stunning than its predecessor ... darker and more difficult than White Blood Cells". 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. The band's fifth album, Get Behind Me Satan, was recorded in White's own home and marked a change in the band's musical direction, with piano-driven melodies and experimentation with marimba and a more rhythm-based guitar playing by White.
  The band's sixth album, Icky Thump, was released in 2007, and unlike their previous lo-fi albums, it was recorded in Nashville at Blackbird Studio. The album was regarded as a return to the band's earlier blues and garage-rock sound. It debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200 chart, and entered the UK Albums Chart at number one, selling over 300,000 vinyl copies in England alone. Of his excitement for vinyl, White explained, "We can't afford to lose the feeling of cracking open a new record and looking at large artwork and having something you can hold in your hands." In support of the album, they launched a Canadian tour, in which they played a gig in every one of the country's provinces and territories. However, later that year, the band announced the cancellation of 18 tour dates due to Meg's struggle with acute anxiety. A few days later, the duo cancelled the remainder of their 2007 UK tour dates as well.
  White worked with other artists in the meantime, but revealed the band's plan to release a seventh album by the summer of 2009. On February 20, 2009—and on the final episode of Late Night with Conan O'Brien—the band made their first live appearance after the cancellation of the tour, and a documentary about their Canadian tour—titled The White Stripes: Under Great White Northern Lights—debu
caption: At the O2 Wireless Festival in 2007
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