Makes Me Want to Listen to Some Jack Whte...

An older gentleman I know, in accordance with the older you will get gospel told me recently he wanted me to check out a tenor banjo he owned. When I got a chance I did this and it was a very nice instrument, an S.S. Stewart Universal Favorite. It was a gift he received from his father in law. I know how that is as Bill Cooney makes sure I stay stocked with tenor banjos. I am guessing this is pretty old. Seems that when Stewart died in 1898 the name was sold here and there and ended up being owned by a company called Buegeleisen and Jacobson, a distributor in New York from 1915 until the company closed in the 70s but not before trying to take on the electric guitar craze with some really cool Italian electric imports. Anyway as I was playing the banjo for the old guy a passer by stopped and said "That Makes me want to listen to some Jack White." That was an unusual comment since we saw Jack White at the jazz fest less than a month ago and while he did not play the banjo he is sort of famous for the screaming budget 1960s electric guitar thing. 

Here's the old banjo:

Here's Jack White. Jack is kind of a guy that while he mangles the blues and other early American musics into something that new and primitive at the same time he also preserves the weird old America kind of ways like recording on original early recording technology. Cathy had to jog my memory that most people who saw the movie "Cold Mountain" saw Jack White play a banjo as he covered the role of a traveling minstrel musician.  I play banjo by making up a cheater tuning that is not really tenor but allows me to carry on the way I do.   

Jack is definitely a play a cool guitar guy. 

My view of the stage was from an angle so I could never see the whole band but the big screen was right in front of me and this was a great bass and drum section with cool equipment. Good interplay on Jack's every move. 

Jack with an old Kay guitar he uses for slide. You can see this guitar in a lot of the White Stripes videos. Onstage also was the old Sears Silvertone amp Jack made famous. It's just like the one you learned to play guitar through in the 60s and wish you still had. 

Click this link to see photos I made of Jack and the Dead Weather at the 2010 Jazz Fest LINK

Jack closed the show with "you have been a great audience, I've been Jack White." I'll use that line sometime wheather I have been playing banjo or a cheap slide guitar. Thanks, Jack.