Jack White and The Philosophy of Constriction

Interesting to see how Jack White has become The Power of Limitations guru. (Google it: This may yet be his greatest legacy.) If it were his whim he could probably tour the concept into a self-help empire. (Thankfully, it's not.) The greatest product of the experiment that was The White Stripes may've been how it's stripped-down architecture demanded a creative Zen—simple resources ardently applied. In The Whtie Stripes Method, every gesture and expression required fullness to operate at optimum capacity. Aside from the band's quality and execution––which I think we can all agree were some of the best of the ought tens––the experiment itself was a noble one. Aside from Jack's passion, which was decidedly more acute than most of his peers, The White Stripes had used the same formulas and three chord basics as seen at any coffee house open mic or street corner busker the world over. The difference being that Jack's chords produced Seven Nation Army.



The moral: If you can't do it with a thrift shop guitar, buzzing amp, and your dilettante girlfriend on drums, don't bother. Unless you do it because you can't NOT do it, surrender now. If you're not creating because you can't find the time or energy or space, your equipment or resources aren't up to the task of your grand vision, then give up. You're a fraud. But, if your writing/art/music/dance/acting teacher thinks you can't but think you must, you may just be onto something: Maybe not yet, but eventually. But first: Bleeding, sweating, and crying. What'd you expect, it is war after all (to paraphrase Picasso).

The late Charles Bukowski made a similar point if a bit more abstractly:

So You Want to Be a Writer

If it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
Unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
If you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.
If you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.
If you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.
If you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.
If it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
If you're trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.
If you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
If it never does roar out of you,
do something else.

If you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.

Don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
The libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
Don't do it.
Unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
Unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.

When it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

There is no other way.

And there never was.

Maybe not gospel but true enough. Don't do it unless you mean it.

No country for an old broad

We could quibble with her website's claim of "The First Female Rock and Roll Singer," but as "The Queen of Rockabilly," that domain is her's alone. Not even an heir or pretender because few women, now or then, would have the courage to stand with her. (Fewer still were as dishy as her: Dig that waist! It'd probably fit in a napkin ring.) In 2011 at the age of 73, and under the able wing of Jack White, Wanda Jackson returned to reclaim the throne that still sat empty.

The story goes that she planned on a career in country music until her friend Elvis told her she should do otherwise. (Previously, the Oklahoma born singer was a regular on the local Missouri TV show Ozark Jubilee. Sound country enough?) She had a few hits in her time including Fujiyama Mama (which makes sport of Japan's atomic holocausts: "I've been to Nagasaki/ Hiroshima too/ the same I did to them, baby/ I can do to you"—apparently, the Japanese could look past uncouth metaphors; it was a big hit there in 1957), Funnel of Love (dig that crazy deep-fried country cum Middle Eastern sound!), and her one entrée into the Top 40, Let's Have a Party. 

Even on the country stage she was feisty little broad. Check her early TV performances and compare her to the women around her, those in the cowboy boots and fringey over-the-knee skirts. Wanda's dresses are a little tighter, her necklines much lower, her fringe more strategic, and her lips way more red. But all of that was secondary to her voice, a suggestive down-tuned piccolo rasp, half animal growl, half choir girl, and all spunk. Historically, the critics have ladled on the praise thick as Southern gravy for her accomplishments. As a pioneer and survivor she has no peers. But as for her music, survey some of her You Tube output and note that for all her alleged greatness, you might find yourself disappointed in the way of classic material. She covered a lot of songs already made popular by other artists; It appears the men got first pick on all the best tunes. While her treatments are endearing and contain a trice enough edge and fire to be slightly left of the mainstream, even then she was no Brenda Lee.

Below is a performance from David Letterman with "special guest" Jack White: White's enthusiastic spill-over is more than enough to compensate for whatever time has taken from Wanda's rocking chair vintage voice. Jack might've done with a few less Marshalls. His volume obliterates the horns and nearly Wanda's voice too but, granted, the energy he supplies lifts everyone. Wanda is the grandma we all wished we had, even if her helmet of blackened hair looks like it could stop a bullet (applied with a few ozone holes worth of hairspray, no doubt) and that early spunk has all but (understandably) gone matronly. Still, her smile radiates an undimished 14K brilliance and her characteristic rasp is mostly intact.

The hair may be bigger than life, but then, it's not unlike the woman herself.

Download: Wanda Jackson - Funnel of Love

It appears "the nice lady with the nasty voice" will be getting some of her due afterall.